The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
by pongnosis
Summary: Alex always knew his curiosity and impulsiveness would get him into trouble. It got him tangled up with MI6, after all. He hadn't expected it to land him in the middle of SCORPIA as Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice. No pairings, AU after Skeleton Key.
1. Scylla and Charybdis

Disclaimer: Absolutely not mine. Alex Rider belongs to Anthony Horowitz, lock, stock, and barrel. I did have a lot of fun writing this, though.

Author's note: This goes rampantly AU after Skeleton Key. No pairings. As this is pre-Eagle Strike, this also means there are a number of things Alex is as of yet unaware of, and that Tom doesn't know about Alex's MI6 job. The rating is for language as well as canon-typical violence and (slightly grim) subject matters later on, including non-graphic murder and torture. The first chapter can stand on its own, but there's a bit of plot that follows that I'll hopefully get finished (though I can't make promises about when). If you want specific warnings, feel free to ask and I'll be happy to answer.

* * *

Alex woke up to the unnerving feeling of someone in his room.

A week before Sabina. A week before France. He had been so close to being normal again, just another teenager on vacation, and now there was someone in his room.

Alex wondered if he should pretend to still be asleep. Then he decided it wasn't like it would do him much good.

Alex opened his eyes. Took in the darkness of the room. A man sat in the old office chair, perfectly at ease with the situation. Anonymous, dark clothes, short hair, pale skin, and a gun in his hand aimed unerringly at Alex. All colour had been leached out by night and left mostly muddled shades of grey, but Alex didn't need to see the blond hair or clear, blue eyes to recognise Yassen Gregorovich.

For a moment both were silent, Yassen in no apparent rush to speak and Alex not sure what to say. The silence lingered until it finally became too much for Alex. If Yassen had wanted him dead, he doubted he would ever have woken up at all. That alone made him want to know what was going on.

"Is this a normal thing, perving on mostly naked fourteen-year-olds? It's kind of creepy." Alex shifted his covers a little further up. Just to make a point.

In the process his hand crept closer to the knife he had hidden between the mattress and the side of the bed. Not that it was going to do much good against a professional assassin, but still. It made him feel a little less exposed.

"You were supposed to return to school, Alex. This is not your world." Yassen's voice gave very little away. Disapproval? Disappointment? Alex couldn't tell.

"Tell that to MI6." So maybe he sounded bitter. He figured he had a right to.

"Perhaps."

Alex shifted. Clutched the covers a little tighter with one hand while the other fell to the edge of the mattress, out of Yassen's line of sight.

"Alex."

He stilled. Met Yassen's eyes. The gun moved fractions of an inch upwards. Alex followed the unspoken instructions and returned both hands to plain sight again. He almost made an inappropriate joke about teenage boys and hands under the covers but stopped himself at the last moment. He doubted his visitor would appreciate it.

The gun didn't waver and Alex sighed, suddenly tired. "Who did I annoy this time?"

The Big Circle triad? MI6 claimed they had handled that. Someone else? It wasn't like he was short on enemies. Part of him wanted to know. Part of him wanted it over with. Part of him wished that Yassen had just finished the job when he had still been asleep.

"I am not here to kill you."

What else would you send an assassin of Yassen's calibre to do, then? Alex could think of several options, none of them nice.

"Kidnapping, then?" he asked. "That doesn't help on the creep factor."

"You have a very active imagination, Alex. A talk. Nothing more."

"At gunpoint?" Alex asked dubiously.

Yassen shrugged slightly. "Insurance that you will listen."

That sounded like it was going to be a wonderful talk right there. Adrenaline was quickly chasing sleep from his mind and his thoughts turned sharper and clearer as he remembered something else.

"Jack?" He wasn't alone in the house, after all. The thought made his heart clench.

"Unharmed. Asleep. She will remain that way for another eight hours."

Drugs of some sort, then. Like MI6 had used on him once. Alex nodded, grateful for that much. He assumed she would only stay unharmed for as long as he didn't cross the man too much. It seemed like the sort of thing he would do.

"All right. You got my attention."

"You did not take my advice."

It took a second to realise what the man was talking about. The rooftop with Sayle's body at their feet. Before Yassen had left. Alex's expression darkened.

"What, 'leave, this isn't your world'? Yeah, that was a brilliant bit of advice right there."

Because it was that easy, wasn't it? Just up and leave. It would never happen as long as he was useful to Blunt, no matter what people claimed.

Yassen's expression hardened a little. "MI6 cares little beyond your usefulness to them. They will use you until they can do so no longer."

The words were a little too close to Alex's own thoughts. He decided to ignore that fact.

"I tried to leave. They wouldn't let me. Just this one little mission, Alex. You brought this on yourself, Alex. You're so curious, Alex, and always get into trouble. What's the alternative? They'll deport Jack and dump me in the worst institution they can find, and then they'll have complete control of me, even if someone else is on the paperwork. They _own_ me. They'll _never_ let me go."

Alex fell silent, a little surprised by his own rant. Yassen remained silent for long seconds. Alex thought he saw what might have been a frown.

He felt the tiredness of nightmares and too little sleep settle again. When he continued, he couldn't quite keep the weariness from his voice.

"If you're here to threaten me to leave MI6, you might as well shoot me now. I didn't want to work for them in the first place. I still don't. I know this isn't something a kid should be involved with, but I wasn't exactly given a choice."

"There are those who consider children expendable." Yassen's voice was quiet when he finally spoke. "Although one would expect them to at least care for you while you remain able to fulfil your task. You were exposed to radiation. Have you been properly examined? Has your agency kept watch on your health?"

Yassen could tell a lie easily. Even then, Alex's silence was answer enough.

"Your father was my mentor. I owe him my life," the man continued, slow and measured. "I did not spend long with him, but he taught me much. Hunter was the best assassin in the world, a credit to SCORPIA, and a truly extraordinary man. He was also a double agent in the service of MI6, and he was killed by SCORPIA when they discovered this."

There were a lot of things about Yassen's words that Alex wanted to ask about. He started with the easiest one.

"SCORPIA?"

"Sabotage, Corruption, Intelligence and Assassination. They are a terrorist organisation. I have been in their employ since before you were born."

Right, then. "My father was an assassin?"

A nod.

"You're lying." He wasn't sure why, but there was no way Yassen Gregorovich was telling the truth about John Rider, double agent or not. It was a trick. A horrible, cruel trick from an equally cruel man. Maybe he wanted Alex to come along to follow in his father's footsteps. Maybe he wanted to turn him against MI6. Maybe -

"I am not." Calm. Even. Utterly sincere, in that weird, cold way of his. Alex stared at him across the dark room. He couldn't read the man as well as he wanted – not that Yassen was someone anyone could read on even a bright sunny day – but right now he saw nothing but honesty.

The first insidious doubt settled in Alex's mind. He wanted to believe someone would have told him about his father, but he knew the likelihood was low. His uncle might have felt he was too young. MI6 liked their secrets too much.

"MI6 wished to have an agent with SCORPIA. Failure to keep cover would result in the death of the agent. They needed someone who would be able to pass training and become a trusted operative. Your father was that man." Yassen hesitated. "I have reason to believe, in retrospect, that some of his assassinations were faked. Most were not. He was skilled. Respected."

The words settled uneasily with Alex. Respected by a terrorist organisation. That wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement right there. An amazing display of deep cover, though. Way braver than anything Alex could ever imagine doing himself, too. Terrifying in a way that sent a chill down his spine at the thought. Surrounded by enemies, one mistake from death, and his father had not only survived but thrived in the process.

He still wanted to accuse Yassen of lying, but there was nothing but honesty in his voice and expression. Really well faked honesty, maybe, but honesty.

"He was a double agent."

A nod.

"And they killed him. Him and my mum both."

Another nod. Was that going to be the fate of every Rider? Killed for some mission or another? MI6 was certainly well on its way to the full set.

"Right. The son of a double agent with the terrorist organisation that his dad screwed over in the first place. That'll go _fantastic,_ " Alex agreed.

Yassen looked faintly amused. If Alex squinted and tried really hard to see it. The man was about as expressive as Blunt, just less … grey.

"Most people did not know the truth about him. MI6 faked his death. Those who do and still live … I believe they would respect your abilities. Your potential. SCORPIA was a young organisation when they trained me. When they trained your father. These days, they create the best operatives in the world. You would learn to survive. What MI6 never taught you."

"They killed my parents. They would have killed me, too, if I'd been there."

"They have the skills needed to keep you alive." Yassen's voice invited no argument. "What did MI6 give you, Alex? Mere days of military training?"

 _Ten days, and it was SAS training_ , but Alex didn't feel the need to correct him. It wasn't like the truth was all that much better.

"How many times have you nearly died in their service?"

That, too, Alex refused to answer. Too many, honestly, but he wasn't about to admit to that, either. Too many, and it didn't help that he had no support or that they didn't send any backup. It was a miracle and a credit to his uncle's training that he was still alive at all.

It was a solid testament to the state of the world and the ruthlessness of MI6 that said training and his luck had been needed at all.

"I have no wish to kill you. If you continue this arrangement with MI6, eventually I will have no choice."

That sounded like honest truth, too. Yassen's other words on that rooftop whispered through Alex's mind.

 _I have no instructions concerning you._

Alex had been a liability, a witness, a loose end, and Yassen had let him live. If Yassen said that he had no desire to kill him, Alex was inclined to believe that.

It didn't change the facts, though. Yassen might have spared him then, but he had taken someone else from him, too.

"You killed Ian Rider."

"Yes."

"I hate you. You're my enemy." Alex felt it was kind of important to mention that.

"Yes," Yassen agreed again. If the words affected him in any way, he did not let it show. "I owe your father everything. I can do nothing to shield you from MI6 if you remain here. If they continue this farce of your employment, you will die. I do not require you to like me. Merely accept it when I say that if you come with me, I will protect you. You may hate me, but I will do what it takes to see you survive."

"Jack -"

"Without you, they have little reason to care. She will be free to stay or leave as she wishes." Yassen shrugged, pragmatic. "Of course, she will get no pay and her visa will not be renewed, but she will be safer than in Ian Rider's house."

 _ **My** house,_ Alex disagreed viciously to himself, _because you killed him._

But he didn't speak the words out loud. He tried another angle instead. "I have friends. School."

A bald-faced lie, considering how life had been since MI6 took an interest in him. Based on Yassen's pointed look, the man knew it.

"You have already attracted attention from a number of enemies. How long before Miss Starbright or Harris are used as leverage against you? How long before one of them is tortured or killed in retaliation for a mission? You know MI6 will provide no security. They rely on anonymity for your protection. My presence here is proof enough of their failure."

Alex had never mentioned Tom's name. He shouldn't have been surprised, but the words still sent a chill down his spine. If Yassen knew, others could find out as well. Tom would be in danger, Tom and Jack both, because of something he had done and with no way to prevent it.

Was that it, then? Were those his choices? MI6, a short life, and everyone around him in constant danger on one side, SCORPIA, a new identity, and the chance for a slightly longer life on the other. Tom and Jack or – Yassen? Who did someone like that associate with? Would there ever be someone else he could be just Alex around?

"So that's it?" he asked, echoing his thoughts.

Yassen made a small, pragmatic sort of gesture. "It is still a choice. You stay, you continue this foolishness, we meet again, and I will be forced to kill you. I already told you I have no desire to do so. You leave with me, I instruct you, give you the skills needed for survival. Perhaps you will live a longer life."

"Third option," Alex disagreed, "I run."

He knew it wasn't an option the moment he had said the words, even if just because he had told Yassen now, but the man didn't look surprised.

"Hunted by MI6 and every enemy you have, with no support and no contacts. You are not yet old enough in this life to have made the connections needed to survive alone. You would be lucky to make it to France. You would be killed, or you would be brought back and watched closely in the future. You would not get the chance to try again."

Alex nodded. Yassen was right about that, however much it sucked to admit. He could imagine it vividly, too. Blunt's orders to have Jack deported and Alex himself put into the care of a more suitable guardian. Someone who would make less of a fuss about blackmail.

Still …

"I can't make a decision just like that. Two days. A day. That's all I ask." Enough time to consider what to do when he wasn't still exhausted from restless sleep and nightmares and twitchy from adrenaline.

Enough time to set a trap, and Yassen knew it, too.

"A decent attempt. No, Alex. You will decide tonight." The gun still remained where it was, perfectly, inhumanly steady. "I have a file waiting for me with my employers. I will need to accept by morning. I will depart the country either way. Without you, to my next client. With you, elsewhere to train. The inconvenience of finding a replacement will be acceptable to my employers with proper incentive."

"Me."

"You."

Alex wondered about the sort of people that considered him that important. The sort of people that apparently had Yassen Gregorovich on a leash. Then the rest of the answer sunk in.

"That's blackmail."

Yassen arched an eyebrow in a silent invitation to expand upon his doubtlessly fascinating logic. Yassen's eyebrow could do sarcasm. Alex was a little jealous.

"If I don't go with you, you'll kill someone." Even as he said the words, he knew it wasn't really accurate. Yassen clearly agreed because the eyebrow arched again. Very expressive, that one.

"I am an assassin with SCORPIA. One of the best in the world. Your presence will not change that. I will work less, perhaps, for a while. Those employment opportunities will simply be accepted by others in SCORPIA's employ. The targets will live no longer for your presence with me."

Point made. Alex still hadn't accepted the offer. He also hadn't refused it, and they both knew it.

It was an incredibly stupid idea. Even dumber than his decision to break into Ian Rider's office fifteen floors up. It could get him killed. It could also give him answers, and maybe the knowledge to make good on his threat. Get revenge, for his parents and for Ian and everything that had gone wrong after they died.

He would be Yassen Gregorovich's student. The man who had killed his uncle and put him at MI6's mercy. SCORPIA would undoubtedly expect him to become an assassin like his mentor and father.

Could he do that? Kill in cold blood?

He tried to imagine it and felt sick to his stomach. He was fourteen years old. He should worry about his grades and friends, not seriously wonder what it would feel like to murder another human being.

"What if I don't want to kill someone?"

"You have killed before, Alex. Do you truly believe that no one has died as a result of your missions?"

Alex swallowed. "They tried to kill me first." He had joked about it at Point Blanc. The nightmares had come later, though the face that haunted his sleep now was General Sarov the moments before he pulled the trigger.

The memories were bad enough as it was. The thought of cold-blooded murder … "I can't do it. I can't be an assassin. I can't murder someone."

Better be truthful, before Yassen found out some other way and Alex paid the price.

"I told your father the same once." Yassen hesitated. "He told me he was pleased with my decision and then told me to stay clear of SCORPIA. To vanish in Russia with the skills I had. I almost did."

Alex wasn't sure he should ask. He did, anyway. "What happened?"

"Everyone will murder with the right incentive. The right target. I was determined to prove him wrong about my potential. I became skilled at it," Yassen said with calm understatement. "Your father would not have wanted this for you. He would have wanted your death as one of MI6's disposable pawns even less."

The lesser of two evils. Alex thought he understood, at least a little.

So those were his choices, then. Alex tried to imagine agreeing and found it hard. He tried to imagine refusing, too, and knew at that moment just what his answer was. Agreeing would be absolute madness. Refusing, and losing any chance of answers, of having someone in his corner for once who could actually protect him, someone who had known his father -

He couldn't.

Alex took a deep breath and nodded once. "I agree. I can't promise I'll ever be able to kill someone, but I'll listen to what you teach me and do my best."

If Yassen was surprised at his answer, it didn't show.

"You will need clothes. Pack what you need for a week in a humid continental climate. Nothing that can be identified. No weapons. Leave your electronics at home."

Simple orders. Alex could deal with that. He didn't even _have_ weapons worse than knives. "Jack and Tom … can I let them know? Tell them I haven't been kidnapped, at least?"

"A letter before you leave. Nothing else. Nothing incriminating."

Better than what Alex had hoped for. They would probably still believe he had been kidnapped, and he already felt guilty about it, but he wasn't going to change his mind. He had to do this. Get some measure of control of his life back, no matter how small.

It took little time to pack. Yassen kept a close eye on Alex's choice in clothes but didn't step in.

The letters were worse. What did he even write? The three sheets of paper he had torn from one of his notebooks looked huge and intimidating. Yassen had been clear that he was not to leave any hint about them, any hints at all, and that didn't make the task any easier. He couldn't mention 'an old friend of his father' without leaving too big of a hint, but he could dodge the truth.

 _Dear Jack,_ he eventually began.

 _We both know MI6 will never let me go. It was just supposed to be one mission, just one, and we both saw how that went. Sooner or later, you and Tom will be targets, too, because MI6 made someone mad enough that they decided to track me down and hurt the people I love._

He wavered between 'care about' and 'love', but if this was potentially the last time he'd ever have any contact with Jack, he wanted her to know.

 _I'll be off by the time you read this. I left a letter for Tom, too. Please make sure he gets it? I don't know where I'm going, but I've got enough to start on and a whole world to see. Ian taught me a lot about staying alive. I'll be fine. Better than I would have been with Blunt, anyway._

 _I'm not sure if I can risk staying in contact but I'll try. Thank you for everything. I don't think I've told you enough, but thank you. For everything._

 _See you around,_

 _Alex_

Tom's letter was no easier to write and took just as long as Jack's had. They had joked once, before Ian and MI6 and the world had gone all upside down, that they should have secret codes; ways to pass on information right under someone's nose. Right now Alex wished they'd gone through with it, even if he wasn't sure what he would even have said. He didn't know where they were going. He didn't know how they would travel. It wasn't even technically under duress.

He wished he could say that much, at least, in a way Tom would believe. It wasn't much of a choice, but it had still been his.

 _Hey Tom,_

 _Jack might've told you already, but I left. I quit. I'm tired. My uncle was a spy with MI6. When that got him killed, they decided to blackmail me into taking over his job. Jack knows everything. She can tell you the full story. Technically I signed the Official Secrets Act and can't talk about it, but I don't really care. I can't keep doing this, and I can't risk you or Jack, either. Nobody else gives much of a shit about me, so you're the ones people would target to get to me. It'll be safer for everyone if I'm just not around._

 _I'm not sure where I'll go, but I've got enough to last for a while. If I can and it's not too risky, I'll get in contact. If not, you were the best mate I could have asked for and I'll miss you, and you can mock me for that bit of sentimental shit when I see you again. Yell at the MI6 suits if they show up, it'll make you feel better._

 _If you can and if Jack sticks around … keep an eye on her for me? I know I've got no right to ask, but I'll try, anyway._

 _I'm sorry, mate._

 _Alex_

The last letter was short, to the point, and much easier.

 _Blunt,_

 _I quit._

He didn't bother signing that one.

Yassen read all three of them through carefully but found nothing to object to. Alex folded them and scribbled the names on the outside.

He managed to fit his things into one suitcase. A whole life packed away just like that. Clothes, mostly. No photos. Nothing personal. Nothing that could have identified him. Yassen had checked to make sure. The suitcase could have belonged to any teenage boy.

Alex almost slipped into Jack's room to leave the letters but stopped himself at the last moment. It felt like an invasion of her privacy, however worried he was, and he knew that if he saw her, there was a very real chance he wouldn't be able to go through with this.

He left the letters on his bed instead. Carried the suitcase downstairs. Made a brief, desperate wish that his gamble wasn't about to go horrible, hideously wrong.

Then he took a deep breath, stepped into the mild summer night outside, and put his life and future in Yassen Gregorovich's hands.


	2. Russia

A/N 1: The use of Burma vs. Myanmar: As the copy of Eagle Strike I had open for reference used Myanmar, that's what this fic uses, too.

A/N 2: Apologies in advance, as I almost certainly got a number of technical issues wrong. Also, the second half of the chapter deals with a fairly grim subject matter, so fair warning.

* * *

They went through Heathrow to Sheremetyevo International Airport.

There were some detours on the way and a cover to memorise while Yassen drove. Father and son who had taken a few days to play tourists in London before they went on to visit their elderly family in Russia. Yassen stopped by a building in a neighbourhood Alex didn't recognise, no different from any other on the street, and unlocked the door to a small apartment.

There was a carry-on with a French paperback, snacks, a cheap phone, and several tacky souvenirs waiting in the apartment for Alex, along with a wallet and passport in his new name. There was also a plastic bag with hairdye and a change of clothes.

According to Alex's new passport, he was Alexandre Durand, a French national with a French father and a Russian-born mother. He didn't ask how long Yassen had been planning it for.

Yassen picked up a phone and gave the dye in Alex's hand a pointed look, and Alex vanished into the bathroom to the sound of Yassen talking to someone in what sounded like Russian. His voice still sounded calm. Even. Things were probably all right, then.

When Alex reappeared half an hour later, he was a brunette and looked like his passport photo. His jeans and shoes were new but comfortable, and his well-worn shirt had the PSG crest on it. Alex also didn't feel the need to ask how Yassen had known it was one of the football clubs he liked, nor how he knew Alex's size in shoes.

Yassen reappeared from the kitchen with still-damp hair, now a brunette as well. His eyes had changed colour to a brown that matched Alex's own, and he looked slightly older somehow.

He looked Alex over and nodded slightly. Apparently he had passed inspection, then.

"You will leave the suitcase."

Alex couldn't even say he was surprised. A bit of diversion, then. Check his closet to see what was missing and get an idea of his plans and what he might look like. There was a large, bland-looking suitcase near the door, probably for Yassen. It looked big enough to fit clothes for both of them. He would have nothing left of his own. If MI6 had some way to track him, then anything short of a physical implant would be out.

He didn't doubt his old stuff would be disposed of, never to be seen again. His passport had been burned already, the only bit of identification he had carried with him.

They switched cars as well, this time to a rental. Yassen's gun had vanished somewhere in the apartment, too. The drive passed in silence; Yassen at the wheel and Alex mentally going over his new identity. It felt like a mission. He wondered if these were the sort of precautions Yassen always took, or if things were different when he had just stolen MI6's pet teenage spy from them. He didn't doubt they would be hunted.

The pair that arrived at Heathrow could pass for family. There was enough of a superficial resemblance to make it work, and the differences could be attributed to Alexandre's mother.

The passport was obviously good enough to pass for genuine, because security didn't look twice at it. Alex still had sweaty hands and had to fight to stop himself fidgeting. He wondered briefly how Yassen handled it. Maybe it got easier with experience.

No one tried to stop them. No one even approached them. They spent two hours in Heathrow and took off five minutes delayed without ever exchanging a word with someone that wasn't a employee at the airport.

By the time the drugs wore off and Jack Starbright woke up, Alex's flight was halfway to Moscow.

* * *

Yassen had a pickup truck waiting in Moscow, a heavy, black Toyota Hilux. He checked it thoroughly as Alex watched before he packed their luggage away, destroyed and disposed of Alex's cover phone, and then drove them north-east through the city.

The first stop was a medical clinic in the outskirts of Moscow. Yassen spoke to them in Russian, then turned to Alex and switched to English after a long conversation with one of the doctors. The man seemed to know Yassen and didn't even blink at the fact that the man had a teenage boy with him. He had probably seen weirder things, if he was involved with Yassen's sort of people.

"I don't trust your prior caretakers' assessment of your health. This is Dmitry. He will give you a full medical check-up. You will answer _all_ questions truthfully."

The last was added with a pointed look. Alex could only nod. If Yassen deemed him trustworthy, that would have to do.

The questions ranged from ordinary -

("Age?"

"Fourteen.")

\- to embarrassing -

("Are you sexually active?"

"... That's awfully personal, isn't it?")

\- to absurd.

("When did you receive your childhood vaccinations? Did you receive all of them? BCG, yellow fever, Japanese encephalitis, typhoid fever?"

"What sort of place considers _all_ of those childhood vaccines? Actually, don't answer that. Yes to the usual ones at the recommended ages in the UK. Yes, yes, no, and yes to the rest in that order.")

"He is in exceptionally good physical condition for his age," Dmitry concluded by the end of it. He spoke to Yassen rather than Alex, though he at least did it in English. Accented, too, but not much. Alex wondered if he had been educated in the US. His English sounded faintly American. "None of his present injuries should cause long-term problems. Most are merely cosmetic in nature by this point. He heals well."

Cosmetic. Alex thought about the scars he had already picked up in MI6's service. That was an interesting way to describe them.

"He should hit his growth spurt soon, if it has not already begun." He gave Yassen a measuring look. "He will have another year at the most of his youthful looks, but with proper training and nutrition he should be able to keep his athletic build. He is a beautiful child and will grow into a handsome man."

Alex got the underlying message just fine. Another year at the most to make use of the child-assassin, or whatever the doctor thought he was. Another year before he had grown up enough to lose the harmless looks of a child and begun to transform into a far less harmless-looking adult instead.

Did Yassen care? It didn't particularly look like it, but Alex couldn't claim to have an easy time reading the man. He had made it clear he wanted Alex to survive, at least. Maybe his adult size and strength would be more of an advantage than being underestimated as a child would be.

The full check-up took well into evening. By the time they left, Alex had a number of needle marks from blood tests and injections both and had spent more time getting poked and scanned and interrogated on his health than he had ever thought a 'check-up' could involve.

They had dinner at a local restaurant and spent the night at a small hotel. Yassen removed his contact lenses, but the hair dye would have to wear off on its own over several weeks. He then started on Alex's first lesson in the life of a sensibly paranoid assassin. How to choose the safest hotel and room. How to protect his secrets and keep his cover. How to keep track of anyone who might have attempted to get into their belongings. How to test and check for a dozen different things. It seemed second nature to Yassen, but by the end of it Alex's head was spinning with the details.

They took off again at dawn. The trip took a solid day, during which Yassen handed Alex several beginner's books on Russian and started his first lesson on that as well. They stopped only once, for supplies – food, fuel, additional clothes – in a town Alex didn't know the name of.

Sixteen hours later they arrived at a small house – cabin, really - in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by forest as far as the eye could see. They had left the paved road behind an hour and a half before and turned to a gravel road, lit up only by the headlights of the car. The last half an hour it hadn't even been that but just two wheel-tracks winding their way through the forest. To the best of Alex's estimates, they were six hundred miles or so from Moscow, but he had no idea of how much of it had been a deliberate detour.

There were no alarm systems that Alex could see, but Yassen went through an extensive check of the place, one step at a time, before he even stepped inside. Electricity, as it turned out, came from a generator in a separate shed. There was already food of the sort that could keep for years, but a small fridge came to life with a quiet hum when the generator started up.

"The water in the kitchen is for drinking. The water in the bathroom is not."

Some sort of purification system, then. Alex would have been surprised if the water supply went all the way out to where they were when even electricity didn't, although it could have been a deliberate choice. "River or rain water?" he guessed.

"Rain water." Yassen gestured at the smaller of the two bedrooms. "That will be yours. Rest. Be up at dawn. We start with guns immediately after physical training."

Just like that Alex was dismissed for the night. The room was small and the air smelled stale, but the bed was comfortable and that was all he really cared about.

Only now, in the middle of a forest somewhere to the north-east of Moscow, did Alex wonder what he had managed to get himself into. There was nowhere to run, even if he'd wanted to. He had no idea of where they were – the signs they had passed had meant nothing to him – and it had been a good ten miles or more since he had last seen another sign of human habitation. The car definitely had upgraded security that would make it hard to steal, so leaving would be a long hike through unfamiliar territory, and he didn't doubt Yassen would hunt him down if he tried.

He was also about to be taught the skills that MI6 refused to consider he might need, skills that could very likely save his life one day. And with personal lessons from Yassen Gregorovich … Alex wasn't blind to the chance he had been given. The man was a living weapon. If Alex wanted to survive, he would have to learn to be the same.

Alex had just enough focus to set the old-fashioned alarm on the bedside table before exhaustion claimed him and he vanished into the oblivion of sleep.

* * *

In the cabin in the middle of nowhere Alex picked up Russian with the same ease he had learned French and Spanish. Yassen immersed him in the language and Alex adapted.

Yassen gave him little time to think. There were a thousand things to learn and keep track of. His uncle's training had been disguised as games, but Yassen left little doubt that it was hard training. The man was a skilled but merciless instructor. Alex went to bed exhausted, physically and mentally, and slept like the dead. He had few nightmares and no insomnia at all, which was one upside to the gruelling days. He dreamt of guns and targets and unarmed combat instead, recited strategies and specifications the way his teachers in school had expected him to know history or maths or grammar, and when he was ready to collapse under the sheer weight of it all, stubbornness and defiance kicked in and pushed him just a bit further.

Slowly, day by day and week by week, Alex adapted. Grew less exhausted, less overwhelmed, even began to enjoy his training and look forward to new skills, and Yassen adjusted his lessons accordingly.

Alex had constant aches and bruises, but it was nothing he wasn't used to already. It didn't make much of a difference to him if the bruises came from sports or close combat lessons, or if the aches came from a ten mile hike at Brecon or an equally long hike in Russia somewhere. Yassen was a demanding teacher, but at least he actually wanted him to succeed.

Once, and only once, had Yassen raised a hand against him as anything other than training. Two weeks in, when Alex started to finally understand what he had got himself into, he had woken up tired and irrationally angry. Teenage hormones, maybe, looking back. In any case, he should have controlled it better.

Yassen had put up with his mood and his mediocre performance for all of half an hour. Then he had struck before Alex could even react, a strong hand wrapped around his throat in a vice-like grip, so tight that Alex could only just breathe.

He had frozen for a second, paralysed in Yassen's grip. The hand had tightened fractionally.

"I will not tolerate this petulant, childish behaviour."

Alex had nodded once. Slightly. Hadn't dared to do anything else, in the grip of someone who could snap his neck with ease. Yassen's hand had remained for a second longer. Then he had let go.

Yassen had resumed their lesson with no further comment. Alex had not pushed his patience again.

It was the grown-up version of his uncle's old training-games, Alex supposed. Just deadly serious. Ian had punished through disappointment. Yassen was equally disappointed, just … showed it with all the cold, brutal ruthlessness of the contract killer that he was.

Alex's world became the simple house in the middle of nowhere and the vast forest that surrounded it. London and MI6 and Brookland seemed like a world and a lifetime away.

They received no visitors, but Yassen spent frequent time on a heavy beast of a laptop or on the phone in various languages. Alex understood only some of them, and what he did manage to catch made little sense for the most part. He wasn't that surprised. It would make sense if Yassen spoke to – employers? Contacts? - mostly in code.

They visited nearby towns occasionally for supplies, mostly food, extra water, and fuel for the generator. Never the same place, either. The drive took hours each way and Yassen spent the time testing Alex's progess with Russian, observation skills, and ability to think on his feet – lie - through careful questions.

They had no TV, just a radio with nothing but Russian channels, and Alex took to listening to it whenever he could.

In what little free time he had, Yassen allowed him access to a laptop of his own, smaller and with vicious security. Internet access was extremely slow but reliable, and probably cost a fortune in such a remote area. Alex managed to rein in his natural curiosity and didn't attempt to find a way to contact Tom or Jack. He knew better than to even try. He did use it to check the news – Russian, British, French sites, just to get the full picture – and, once, the INTERPOL missing person's entry on himself.

 _Alexander John Rider, 14 years old, place of disappearance: Chelsea, London, United Kingdom -_

It was unnerving to see himself there. The photo was recent and very good quality compared to the others on the page. Alex suspected MI6. He also didn't doubt Yassen had already planned for it. The man himself was wanted in a number of countries, after all, and that hadn't seemed to slow him down, much less stop him.

He wondered about Jack and Tom sometimes, in those rare hours to himself. Jack probably worried. He wondered if she had returned to the States yet. There would be little to keep her and she would be safe, an ocean and a continent away from him and all the problems being around him caused.

The thought still made his heart twist and made guilt settle heavily. Alex never mentioned it, but he didn't doubt Yassen somehow knew, anyway. The man could read him unnervingly well.

"Are they still hunting me?" Alex asked three weeks into his stay, when he couldn't keep quiet about his curiosity and worry any longer. Yassen had said nothing, so Alex assumed they were safe in their current location, but that didn't tell him much about the state of the world outside.

"Yes." Yassen glanced at him. "They lost your trail, but there are orders to detain you, should you reappear. The current theory seems to be that you're somewhere in France or Spain. The Pleasures were briefly detained for questioning, as were Starbright and Harris. You can hardly be surprised. You have proven valuable to them."

Detained. Alex winced mentally at the word. Even if it had only been for questioning, he couldn't imagine those meetings with MI6 had gone all that well. MI6 or whoever they had sent to do their dirty work. Maybe the police, though considering that Alex had blatantly broken the Official Secrets Act in Tom's letter, maybe MI6 did want to handle it personally.

Alex didn't ask where Yassen had his information from. There were questions Yassen would answer and questions he wouldn't. Alex managed that balancing act well for the most part. If the man felt he should know, he would share. If not, Alex had learned to pick his battles.

Yassen had demanded full disclosure on his prior missions, and Alex had given it. He didn't like to talk about what had happened, but he could understand why the man wanted to know. If nothing else, it was valuable information. Yassen had wanted to know everything, from the briefings to the injuries Alex had gained, and Alex spoke for hours until there was nothing left to ask about.

He had felt guilty for a moment but pushed it aside again. He didn't owe MI6 anything, and he was already consorting with a contract killer with terrorist sympathies. It wasn't like they didn't already have enough reason to lock him up and throw away the key if they caught him.

Life never became routine, Yassen was careful about that, but over the course of Alex's first month as his student they did adapt to each other. Made it a little easier to live so close together.

It was early August when the world went to hell. Alex knew enough Russian to understand the words 'nuclear explosion' when the radio station interrupted with a news broadcast.

Yassen interrupted Alex's slow, meticulous disassemble and cleaning of the many, many guns in the house that he was expected to master. Turned up the radio. Alex had wondered why it was on. Now he knew.

He didn't understand all of it, but he got enough. He would get the rest of the story later online, when his lessons were over for the day.

 _\- Multiple nuclear explosions, Trident missiles -_

 _\- western Myanmar, fallout reaching into China -_

 _\- Peru, Minuteman -_

 _\- hijacked Air Force One._

 _Damian Cray._

Yassen did not look surprised. Uneasy, maybe, just slightly, but not surprised.

That knowledge settled cold and heavy in Alex's mind.

Alex got the full story in bits and pieces, through the radio and a mix of news sites. Twenty-five hijacked nuclear missiles in the hands of a madman who wanted to save the world. Thirteen of them had been destroyed in flight. Time had run out before the four Trident D5s and eight Minuteman missiles could be destroyed as well. There had been nothing anyone could do in time to stop the eight nuclear warheads that had impacted north of Arequipa, or the four Trident missiles, each with a payload of four warheads, that had struck along western Myanmar, near the border with India and China.

Air Force One itself had crashed in the North Sea. The accounts didn't agree on the reason – deliberately brought down, shot down somehow, or just an accident – and the whole thing sounded like a cover-up to Alex.

Alex was silent for a long time that evening. Neither of them spoke.

When Alex eventually broke the silence well into evening, he already knew the answer he would get. He had to ask, anyway. "SCORPIA?"

For most things they spoke Russian now, if still obviously somewhat haltingly and not entirely accurate in Alex's case. Important conversations were kept in English. Alex knew it would be one of those talks.

Cold, blue eyes turned to him. Weighed his question.

"He approached us. He had plans to annihilate most of the world's drug trade."

"Through nuclear missiles."

A slight nod.

"You were supposed to work for him," Alex continued as more pieces fell into place. "Your client. That was him."

"SCORPIA was unsure of the contract but agreed to provide an assassin for security and assistance. The job was offered to me. It was decided my time was better spent on you when you agreed."

Alex was silent for long seconds as his brain stopped dead in its tracks, rebooted, and took this new development into account. He felt tired suddenly, the same bone-deep weariness he had felt when Sarov had him at gunpoint, the moment when he had thrown the plastic card into the water rather than hand it over, and done so knowing it would mean his death.

Alex nodded once. Accepted that there was only one course of action he could take if he wanted to be able to live with himself for however short that remaining life might be.

He straightened and met Yassen's eyes without flinching. "I can't work for an organization like that. They would have helped trigger a nuclear apocalypse for money. I can't. I won't."

How much had the possible deaths of millions cost? What was SCORPIA's price? Alex didn't know and he wasn't sure he wanted to find out, either.

Yassen didn't move. He hadn't reached for a weapon, but for an assassin of his skill, that meant very little. He could still kill Alex in a dozen different ways within a few seconds if he wanted.

When he spoke Alex could get nothing from his tone of voice, good or bad.

"You are still young."

Anger awoke in Alex at the dismissal.

"So what, it's going to be different when I'm fifteen, or eighteen, or twenty? I'll just lose my morals? Decide that working for genocidal maniacs sounds like a great idea?"

"There are few absolutes in our line of work."

"I'm not an assassin."

"How long before MI6 would have made you one?" Yassen's words were calm and merciless. "Few would suspect a child. It would start slow, of course. A truly despicable example of humanity. Someone no one could argue deserved to live. Once you took your first life, the second would be easier." A small shrug. "Or you would break under the strain, perhaps."

The analysis was delivered in Yassen's usual calculated words. Alex felt a slight chill.

"It doesn't matter. I won't join SCORPIA."

"You would not need to. With training, you will have sufficient skills to manage alone. With things as they are in Britain for you, even combat zones would be safer. There would be a number of security companies willing to hire a young adult with such training. Alex Rider would simply vanish, and you would be free to choose your own path."

"I can't imagine SCORPIA would be happy with that, not with how much I know."

"You would have the skills to vanish entirely if you wished. Even from influence such as theirs."

"I can't imagine SCORPIA would be happy with you, either."

Something flickered through Yassen's eyes. It was gone before Alex could identify it. "I am valuable. I would manage."

"You're lying." Alex didn't know how, but he knew. He didn't know why he cared, either. The man was a contract killer, employed by a terrorist organisation, and responsible for probably hundreds of deaths, including Alex's own uncle. He should be happy to see the man killed.

Said contract killer was also one of the last living connections to Alex's family and one of the few people who had done anything to protect him, and that knowledge rested heavily on his mind, too.

What had John Rider done to put Yassen Gregorovich so heavily in his debt that the man was willing to risk his life for Alex's safety?

"Why?" he asked before common sense could catch up with his mind. "Because he saved your life?"

Yassen reached up. Ran a finger across the thin, perfectly straight scar on his neck. "He took a life and saved one with the same bullet. There was a black widow spider on my neck. The sound of the shot would have seen me bitten. I would have died. To remove it first would have cost time we did not have. I was merely a subordinate with some potential who had, unusually, been granted a second chance after I failed my first mission. I expected him to shoot the target and deem my death an acceptable loss to SCORPIA, as his failure would have seen him killed as well. SCORPIA does not tolerate mistakes. He took the chance and shot the spider and the target with the same bullet. He was a remarkable marksman."

Alex was silent for a long time. He tried to imagine Yassen a decade and a half ago. He wouldn't have been that much older than Alex was now. Still a teenager.

"You spared me when you shot Sayle. I was a liability. Anyone else would just have shot me." A life for a life. Shouldn't that have been enough to satisfy whatever debt Yassen felt he owed?

Yassen shrugged. "Had you run, I would have. My orders were to kill you. You are much like your father, though. SCORPIA wasn't pleased but agreed to ignore it. Sayle had become an embarrassment. His death eased the argument."

Alex remembered standing on that rooftop and was suddenly, intensely grateful for whatever stubbornness and need for answers that had kept him standing there when Sayle had fallen to Yassen's two bullets.

"You told me you had no instructions concerning me."

"I lied."

Obviously. Alex couldn't even bring himself to be angry. Yassen had no reason to tell him the truth back then. At least he'd told him now. What would he even have done with the information? Told MI6? He wouldn't have been surprised if they had tried to use him as bait for Yassen, then. Just another small, harmless mission that couldn't possibly go wrong.

"Edward Pleasure … several of the articles mentioned he was looking into Cray's activities and that he's in the hospital after someone tried to kill him. That was Cray's assassin at work?"

It was a statement more than a question. Yassen still nodded slightly.

"Cray had a history of removing obstacles in a permanent manner. SCORPIA supplied some of those assassins."

Alex fell silent again. Stared at the map on his laptop, of nuclear symbols and coloured areas of fallout, and the way most of northern Myanmar glowed vivid yellow, orange, and red on the map. There had been recordings from Peru of the bright flare of impact and the towering mushroom clouds that followed. There hadn't been any from Myanmar yet.

SCORPIA had known what Cray had planned and not only had they let it happen, they had actively helped. A few words to the right people could have stopped it, just like that, but they had stood back and watched.

Alex wanted to throw up.

"Alex."

He looked up to meet Yassen's eyes.

"Go to bed," the man said, almost gently. "I will not postpone training for your lack of sleep."

Alex hesitated. Then he nodded once and headed to the bathroom to get ready.

* * *

Alex dreamt of nuclear fire that night. He was in crowded London, he could feel the countdown in his head, and he was running. Running to warn Jack, or Tom, or someone in the Bank, or anyone, but no one would listen, no one even saw him, and time was running out.

Then he was in Chelsea, at the house, but when he reached Jack he saw nothing in her eyes. No recognition, no interest, nothing at all -

\- and the world lit up in bright, terrible fire, and Alex was left alone in a burning landscape, in searing ash and flames and radioactive dust.

He woke up to a hand on his arm. Panic flared for a brief instant, but a familiar voice cut through it.

"Alex!"

Alex stilled. Took a shuddering breath. Opened his eyes to find Yassen watching him.

It was dark around them. Alex could only just make out the time on the alarm on his table.

Three in the morning. He had slept for four hours, then. He felt wrecked.

Neither of them spoke for long seconds. Alex wasn't sure what to say, and Yassen didn't strike him as a person to be all that comfortable with anything emotional.

"Sorry I woke you up," he finally said. His mouth felt dry. He could almost taste the ash.

"I am a light sleeper." For Yassen, that reply was practically kind. He didn't ask about the nightmare. Alex was grateful for that.

That was all the conversation either of them wanted. Yassen returned to his own room, and Alex curled up in bed in the darkness and tried to think of something else. He had saved the world from Sarov. A month later, it had barely made a difference.

Alex did not fall back asleep for a long time.

* * *

A/N 3: The big issue with this plot was always what would happen if the only person in the right place to stop a madman's plans just … wasn't there. Few people suspected Damian Cray of anything, and no one suspected something of that scale. In canon, Alex was in the right place at the right time to stop him. In this fic he wasn't.

I used NUKEMAP by Alex Wellerstein for the calculations in this and the chapters to come. The potential effects on global climate haven't been taken into account. The Minuteman missiles, to the best of my research, carry one warhead each these days (but can carry up to three). At the time of Eagle Strike, some still carried three. The Trident D5s can carry somewhat more than than, but are apparently limited by treaty to eight. I chose the middle range of four per missile. I'll readily admit I didn't have the stomach to run the calculations for the full thirty-two nuclear warheads.


	3. His Father's Son

A/N: Updates will slow down somewhat now that the holidays are over and work awaits again, but they will hopefully still be around every 1-2 weeks. Thank you for your reviews, and I hope you enjoy the fic.

* * *

The full story of Damian Cray's crimes came out later, mostly courtesy of Edward Pleasure's detailed notes and sources. The journalist himself was still in the hospital under heavy protection following the failed assassination attempt. Alex hoped Sabina was okay. He wondered briefly if he could have done something, if he had been there. Probably not. It had been a poisoning at a local restaurant according to several of the articles, and he had only been brought to the hospital in time thanks to several unnamed, concerned restaurant guests who had recognised the signs.

Alex suspected MI6 involvement there. It would make sense they would keep the Pleasures under surveillance if they thought he was in the country, too. Too bad they hadn't bothered to look into _why_ the man had been poisoned, Alex added bitterly to himself.

The literal and figurative fallout of Cray's insanity would last for a long time. The radioactive fallout from the Trident D5s drifted east and spread out, mainly in northern Myanmar but reaching far enough to cross the border to China. The Minutemen had impacted in a string starting north of Arequipa and stretching north and west, the fallout spreading all the way to the edge of the Amazon rainforest. The estimated fatalities of the initial blasts were past seven thousand, the injured four times that.

The long-term illnesses and fatalities and the environmental damages were still pure guesswork, but the initial estimates were brutal. Sheer luck alone had spared any major cities. The fallout had missed Cusco by a hair's breadth.

The political fallout would last significantly longer.

The conspiracy theories started almost immediately. Why had the missiles aimed at Colombia and Pakistan been stopped, but not those for Peru and Myanmar? Had it been a deliberate choice to let them hit or just bad luck that those took the longest to destroy? Had someone, somewhere looked at the countdown and known it wasn't enough and made the decision as to which ones they would have to sacrifice?

The last theory was the most plausible to Alex. The Minuteman missiles had been the only ones with only one warhead. He couldn't imagine being the person in that position, deciding who would have to die.

Finger-pointing started soon after. Damian Cray had been British, which meant that MI5 had been the ones at fault for not catching on to the plan sooner. The missiles had been American, controlled from Air Force One, which made it their fault that it had been possible in the first place. Air Force One had been hijacked in Heathrow, which again made the flawed security a British issue. Cray's people had been mostly mercenaries, with few ties to anything. The SCORPIA assassin had died on the plane with Cray, and with the plane crashed in the North Sea, recovery could take months. There would be little evidence left of SCORPIA's involvement by then.

The stories were a mix of guesswork, expert analysis, wild conspiracies, and facts that would have been classified into oblivion if they had more than a grain of truth in them. The details were wildly contradicting in most cases, a number of newspapers had to print corrections, and several stories had to be retracted entirely. One editor even quietly resigned for 'health reasons'. Alex wondered if someone had been sharing information they shouldn't have.

Alex read the news and listened to the radio every day, just like Yassen did, and the reality of Cray's actions became grimmer by the hour.

Well into the evening two days later, between articles on humanitarian aid and photos of people in radiation-proof suits and the arrival of field hospitals to handle what the normal hospitals could not, Alex looked up and caught Yassen's eyes.

"These are the people you work for? These are the people you want _me_ to work for?"

Yassen didn't answer and his expression gave nothing away.

"Stormbreaker," Alex continued when something else occurred to him that he had never really allowed himself to linger on. "The virus – SCORPIA or Sayle?"

"Sayle's own idea. SCORPIA had the necessary contacts to supply the virus. Sayle was a loathsome man but paid well for my services."

What would have killed more, Alex wondered distantly, nuclear apocalypse or the genetically modified smallpox virus? At what point did the amount of digits in the number of fatalities go from tragedy to statistics?

Yassen Gregorovich had his own peculiar idea of honour, as Alex had found, but he was also an utterly amoral man. The perfect assassin. No personal qualms or scruples, none but Alex himself, and even that wouldn't have mattered if Alex had shown weakness on that rooftop.

Was Yassen Gregorovich, as SCORPIA's best assassin, merely an extremely precise, highly lethal weapon in the hands of his employers or a potential mass murderer by proxy?

"Why?"

Yassen arched an eyebrow. "Because they pay me."

Obviously. It was that simple.

Alex forced himself not to react – Yassen had started to crack down on needless displays of emotion – and instead nodded once, only a bit unsteadily.

He understood there and then that any appeal to Yassen's conscience, however little he might have left, would be pointless. At best it would do nothing.

"I'm _fourteen_ ," he finally said, trying to get his point across and begging Yassen to understand. "I can't do this. I can't kill. I can't be some cold-blooded murderer for hire. I can't be an assassin. I can't look the other way when someone plans mass murder."

"You are fourteen," Yassen agreed. "I do not expect you to."

Alex didn't ask at what age he _would_ expect it.

"As for killing …." Yassen glanced at the laptop, at the radioactive devastation that had been just another spot in the Peruvian highlands three days prior. "Consider Damian Cray. A single bullet could have stopped his plan. Could you not have taken that shot? Is that not MI6's principle? What is the life and principles of one man, one child, against the good of the many?"

"There are alternatives." Non-lethal shots. Capture. More difficult, too, and Alex knew it.

"You will not always have the luxury." Yassen's voice was merciless. "All men have a price, Alex. What is yours? A single, deliberate death by your hand to save a thousand? Ten thousand? How many lives are your morals worth?"

Alex didn't answer. Could he have? He imagined the Cray from TV, playing the piano and looking so utterly human despite knowing what the man would do. Could he have done it? Looked at the man through a scope and pulled the trigger before the plan had even been put into motion?

And what if Cray's goals had been different? If the bombs had been aimed elsewhere? At New York, or Paris – or London.

For Jack and for Tom? Alex remembered his dream vividly and knew his answer.

Yes. For Jack, and for Tom, and for anyone else who would have been killed, and he wondered if he would ever have forgiven himself for it.

All men had a price. What was his, then? How long did his own convictions matter more than the lives of strangers?

Yassen didn't speak but Alex didn't doubt he somehow knew the way Alex's thoughts were going, and he wondered briefly if Yassen had ever had the same thoughts. Had he ever been anything but the cold, efficient killer? How old had he been the first time he killed?

"That is what MI6 would have done to convince you. It changes you, to take your first life deliberately. Once you managed, the second would be easier. You would need far less justification the second time. It would only be a bullet, then. It would be easier. Familiar. Simply shifting a few muscles to pull the trigger."

"Stop."

"It is but the life of a man who would have lived perhaps another twenty or thirty years. He would have died at the peak of his career, an idol untainted by death and destruction," Yassen continued mercilessly. "All men die. One instant, painless death to spare thousands of others, and all you would have to do, Alex, would be to pull the trigger."

" _Stop!_ "

 _Please_ , he didn't add, but Yassen fell silent, anyway. Maybe he understood he had pushed it as far as Alex could take.

The man stood. Crossed the room to crouch by Alex's side. He tilted Alex's head up with a gentle hand and the expression on his face might have been sympathy on another man. "It will become easier in time. It will become simply another job. I have no wish to see you dead. Morals are a luxury afforded to those skilled and powerful enough to defend them. Right now, you are neither. In time, if you live long enough, you will be."

Not that it was any guarantee it would matter any by then, and Alex knew it. If he'd already given up on anything resembling morals, would he even _want_ them back? Would he be able to live with his own choices if he did?

He knew with sudden, cold clarity that he would be dead if he backed out. Maybe not by Yassen's hand, but definitely by SCORPIA's. He had been trained. They wouldn't want those skills in MI6's hands, and Alex had no doubts that Blunt would exploit his new abilities ruthlessly.

This had been a mistake from the moment he had agreed and it was too late to change it.

Back out and die. Or do the unthinkable and go through with it until he had the skills to survive on his own even against SCORPIA's assassins, and hope he could live with his own demons by the end of it.

Maybe he could even do something. Make it worth the blood on his hands somehow. Could Cray's plan have been prevented if someone had known? Could Stormbreaker have been stopped far sooner? If they'd had another agent in deep cover, the way John Rider had been?

His father had support. Communications. Alex would have nothing. He would be entirely on his own.

Not that different from his usual missions, then. Maybe it would even make it easier in some ways. No suspicious gadgets to find. No need to find a way to report in and run the risk of discovery. If he did get caught, it wasn't like backup would have made it in time to save his life, anyway.

He would have to become one of SCORPIA's and do it well enough to ease any suspicions they might have. He would have to torture and kill. He would become a legitimate target, a traitor to his country, and a wanted criminal working for a terrorist organisation.

But he had already agreed to that when he had accepted Yassen's offer in the first place, and he knew it. Maybe not in as many words, but it had been true nonetheless. He was already in too deep to back out.

"I don't want to be a killer," he admitted quietly, one of the few moments of weakness he had allowed himself in Yassen's presence.

"Do you wish to live?"

Alex swallowed. "Yes."

It felt like a confession and it shouldn't have. He was fourteen years old. He should be in school with friends, worrying about grades and his place on the football team. Of course he should want to live. But he had accepted, sometime in his months with MI6, that it would never happen. He would die on a heavily classified mission somewhere long before he ever became an adult.

He had hoped Yassen's offer would be a chance. It still was, but price was rapidly growing beyond what he had ever expected to pay.

"You have killed before to save your own life and others. You will be forced to do so again."

There was nothing in Yassen's words but harsh truth and Alex knew it. Whatever his training, whatever his future choices, he would be a target. He should have picked the institution when Blunt had made the threat and he should have kept his curiosity to himself, but if he had, he would have been dead from smallpox months ago like every single other school kid in the UK.

He was in a position to do something now. No one had stopped Cray, and Sayle had almost succeeded, but he could do something about SCORPIA's future plans. One life against millions. Did it really matter what happened to him, then?

His own thoughts reminded him a lot of how he had always imagined Alan Blunt to think. It wasn't a nice comparison.

"I don't have much of a choice, do I?" Alex asked, as much to Yassen as to himself.

"There is always a choice." Yassen almost looked amused about something. Almost. "Some choices are simply worse than others."

Right. Death or SCORPIA. He wouldn't live to see adulthood either way, but maybe he could do something with it. Make it on his own terms. And at least SCORPIA left a small chance of survival. Some world where he got skilled enough to just walk away and spend the rest of his life on the run.

Alex let out the breath he had been holding. Felt his tension and fear and anger fade and settle into weary resignation.

 _I'm sorry, Jack._

"Can't really argue with that, can I? All right. I agree. I'll join SCORPIA."

Blue eyes observed him carefully. "If they doubt your loyalties, you will die."

"They won't." Whatever it took, Alex would have to do it. Wasn't that what MI6 had taught him? Wasn't that what his father had done? A few lives – human lives, with hopes and dreams and families – against an agent in a terrorist organisation willing to kill millions, in a position to stop their plans or take down the organisation entirely. To Alan Blunt and MI6, what were a few lost lives against British interests?

He suspected Yassen knew exactly what his plans were. He had known his father, after all. The man watched him for a long moment. Alex didn't know what he was looking for. Whatever it was, he apparently found it, because he nodded, and that was the end of the argument.

Yassen didn't ask. If he planned to tell SCORPIA about his suspicions, there would be nothing Alex could do, but he doubted it. Even though it would put Yassen himself in danger as well, something told him the man would stay silent. He doubted he would actively help, but at least he wouldn't condemn Alex to death immediately. Probably.

Yassen started on lessons in torture and interrogation techniques the following day. Alex supposed there wasn't much reason not to, now that he had made the decision to join.

The subject was purely theoretical for the time being, a mix of books and Yassen's lectures. Eventually it wouldn't be. Poisons and weapons he could deal with. The idea of the various gruesome techniques in the books written by Dr Three … the thought alone was enough to make him feel sick. He imagined hurting someone else like that, and he imagined himself at Yassen's mercy as the man slowly and meticulously demonstrated the less damaging techniques in a practical lesson. He honestly wasn't sure which one of those he feared the most.

Yassen must have known, because he sighed softly after one of the lessons in an unusual display of … something. Sympathy, maybe. Or weariness of dealing with a teenager. Could be either, really. Alex couldn't tell.

"We will not leave you permanently injured," he told Alex with unusual gentleness. "But this training will be necessary when we arrive at Malagosto. You will be a high priority target. Death is preferable to failure or capture, but for some that is not an option. You will carry valuable information. They will want you alive. If you are captured, this training may mean the difference between escape and execution. I know you wish to live, Alex. You will be stronger for this."

"I know." He did, and he understood on some deep, uncomfortable level.

It still did nothing to ease the low, lingering sense of dread. Knowing Yassen, he hadn't intended it to, either.

* * *

Alex had wondered several times just how much it cost someone of Yassen's skill to stay out of work for so long just to train a teenager, but Yassen hadn't answered him. He did vanish for a solid week not long after the Cray attack and left Alex himself behind with strict instructions not to get into any trouble.

He was to continue his lessons alone, rein in his curiosity, and refrain from any stupidity.

Alex surprised even himself when he managed to do just that. In the middle of nowhere, there was little else he could do. Train, learn, keep up on the news, hunt a little. He didn't want to know what sort of punishment Yassen would think of if he failed, either. He searched for the cameras he was almost sure were somewhere in the house but didn't find any. Either they were very, very well hidden, or Yassen did not want that sort of surveillance in his own safe-house.

He wanted so badly to contact Jack somehow, even just a sentence to let her know he was okay, but he knew better. MI6 would have her under constant surveillance, and no matter what precautions he took, he could easily leave just enough of a track behind on accident to follow. The last thing he wanted was to bring that sort of attention down on them. Actually leaving never occurred to him as anything more than an idle thought. It wasn't like it was much of an option anymore.

Yassen had returned on the eighth day. Alex didn't ask about his absence, and Yassen didn't explain. He did nod slightly in approval at Alex's progress on his own, and that was it. If it had been a test – and few things with Yassen weren't – he had passed it.

Things returned to normal. Alex's training continued. The days grew subtly shorter, August ended, and September rolled around.

Several countries and time zones away, autumn term began at Brookland. Alex stared into the hazy twilight that morning and wondered about home. About Jack and Tom, about his teachers and the few friends he'd still had. About the Pleasures, and the ongoing hunt for him.

In a few hours Tom would get up, probably late as usual, and get ready for the first day of term. In a few hours Alex would be done with morning workout and would proceed with gun practice.

They were dangerous thoughts, he knew. Distractions that Yassen didn't approve of. Distractions that could get him killed in the wrong circumstances. But for now, alone in his room in the middle of nowhere and with only the sounds of the forest outside, Alex allowed himself that small vulnerability.

* * *

Alex only learned of operation Invisible Sword after it had already been stopped. This time Yassen hadn't left the radio on and when Alex checked the news that evening in mid-September, the ever-present stories of the continued effects of the nuclear explosions had been temporarily pushed aside in favour of an attempted terrorist attack in the heart of London.

 _Police representatives state that -_

 _\- following the still unexplained deaths at Heathrow Airport -_

 _\- rumoured demands by the terrorist organisation SCORPIA -_

 _\- at least four fatalities with several others wounded, authorities still refuse to comment -_

 _\- anonymous sources that the attack was meant to target thousands of British school children._

Children.

The only reason the attack had been stopped at all from what Alex could see was that the British police forces and intelligence community were still on extremely high alert following Cray. In any other case they might have hesitated. In this case someone had gambled their career, made the call, and had a civilian hot air balloon shot down over London. The gamble had paid off. The device, whatever it was – the going theory was some sort of chemical weapon - had been destroyed. It could just as easily have been half a dozen innocent tourists in that balloon.

Someone had caught it on tape, as had several of London's many CCTV cameras. If someone had made the wrong call, if the hot air balloon had been utterly benign and had been a tourist gimmick … heads would have rolled, Alex was sure. They might still for the risk that someone took in giving that order.

There had been several fatalities on the ground, and significantly more when an old church turned SCORPIA hideout had been raided immediately afterwards. That was still nothing compared to what would have happened if those anonymous sources were right about the intended target of the attack.

"Did you know?" Alex demanded. It wasn't a bright idea to be that disrespectful to Yassen, and he knew that very well, but right now he didn't care.

"Rumours. Little else. It was not my operation."

In Yassen-speak that translated to 'not my business'. It wasn't his operation, it didn't directly influence him, so Yassen stayed out of it. Which was probably the best way to stay alive in a place like SCORPIA but right now it just served to make Alex that much angrier.

"Children?" he demanded.

Yassen's silence spoke volumes.

"They targeted _children_." Alex repeated and kept his voice even, if barely. " _Again._ "

Children. School children who had almost died for the second time in six months as the direct targets of madmen out to get even for some imaginary slight or another. Alex didn't know who SCORPIA's client had been in this case, but it took a special type of nutcase to target kids.

Yassen didn't speak. Perhaps he knew there was nothing he could say that wouldn't set Alex off.

If Alex had still had any doubts about his decision, they were long gone. Against images of mushroom clouds and nuclear fallout and thousands of dead children …

SCORPIA had to be destroyed. Whatever the cost, whatever the means, SCORPIA had to be destroyed.

"So much like your father." When Yassen finally spoke, there was something that might have been regret in his voice. Regret and resigned acceptance.

Alex knew for certain there and then that Yassen was completely aware of his plans and knew for just as sure that the man wouldn't sell him out. He wouldn't help, but if Alex's deception got revealed, it would not be by him. Alex would be entirely on his own, for better or for worse.

He could deal with that. He would have to.

* * *

Next: A visit from SCORPIA.


	4. Gordon Ross

They got their first visitor one noon in late September. Gordon Ross was a ginger Scotsman and a surprising bit of familiarity in all of the Russian culture Alex had been surrounded by. A technical specialist at Malagosto, Yassen had told him, come to see Alex and assess his potential.

Alex had no delusions about what would happen if Ross found him lacking – or worse, untrustworthy. He had passed the first real test when Yassen had argued his case for the executive board and undoubtedly kept them up to date on his progress. This would be the second.

Even then, he couldn't help but like the man. He was a murderer and a terrorist who had spent years in prison, but he had a wicked sense of humour and was a breath of fresh air against Yassen's iron-willed, emotionless self-control.

" _What's your favourite weapon?_ " the man asked in accented Russian. His Scottish accent seemed to seep into even his foreign languages. " _I know Cossack likes his toys."_

" _I have none,_ " Alex answered in the same language, less accented but more slow and careful. Yassen had started to crack down on grammar and pronunciation, too. " _Routine kills._ "

His mentor had been very clear on that, too. Alex had weapons he liked a lot more than others, but he would learn to use all of them to Yassen's exacting standards.

Ross nodded and looked pleased. "Very decent Russian," he continued in English and glanced at Yassen. "Eleven weeks, starting from scratch? Fantastic job. Arabic next? Children learn better than an adult ever would. He'll be ready for his first mission soon at this rate."

Yassen nodded. "He will start on Arabic in November. There is still much to work on with Russian, but he is intelligent and has incentive. MI6 conscripted him for a reason."

Ross' smile was sharp and a bit too delighted. "Absolutely furious that they lost him, that's what they are. Their own fault for not taking better care of their operatives, much less Hunter's son."

He clapped Alex on the shoulder. "Come along, kid. Let's see what you can do with a weapon. Show me what eleven weeks of Cossack's tutelage can do."

Ross might have had the sense of humour that Yassen frequently lacked but he was no less of a merciless taskmaster. Alex spent six hours going through every single weapon in Yassen's considerable arsenal in the cabin, from knives to sniper rifles. He was drilled in their specifications, history, and use, followed by practical demonstrations of both their general care and maintenance as well as Alex's skills with them.

The last weapon packed away, Ross continued right on with close combat interspaced with a number of questions in Russian.

Alex found himself struggling to answer a rapid-fire interrogation on maths, war history, poisons, proper grammar, and whatever else Ross felt like in the middle of mock fights with Yassen and Ross himself, neither of which held back in the slightest.

Two hours later, when Ross finally nodded and stepped back to allow Alex back on his feet after the last fight, it had been eight gruelling hours since the assessment had started.

Alex was exhausted, his head was spinning, and he knew he would be in real pain as soon as he settled down, but he hadn't made a sound of complaint and he had never let his focus waver even once.

Whatever Ross' verdict would be, he had done his absolute best. He knew with complete certainty that his life depended on it.

Ross gestured to the couch and settled himself on the chair across from it. "Sit, kid."

Alex sat.

"Why SCORPIA?" Ross asked bluntly.

Alex had expected the question and had already considered the answer. "Because Cossack gave me a choice. Because MI6 didn't. Because it's in my blood."

"Hunter was a double agent. Skilled, dangerous man, that one, but loyal to MI6 in the end." Ross had already been hard to read during the assessment. Now Alex could get nothing from him.

Luckily he had thought about question, too. "Cossack told me the details. It got both him and my mum killed, and almost me in the process. They sent a married man undercover with someone like SCORPIA, after screwing up his life to make him a suitable candidate. The only way he could have had a normal life afterwards would have been a new identity, and there was no way MI6 would have let someone as useful as that just leave. With the way they recruited me, I'm not even sure how much of a choice my dad was given in the first place. I was sent off with no training, no backup, and no real weapons. I wasn't even paid. If I'd refused, they would have deported my caretaker and sent me to the worst institution they could find. My _dear_ uncle Ian left my guardianship to them in his will. They _owned_ me. My dad had my mum to worry about. I can imagine the sort of threats they came up with for that."

Ross watched him carefully. "And if Hunter turned out to have done it of his own, free will?"

Alex's words were bitter without any need for acting on his part. "Great for him, then, isn't it? He got an actual choice. They must have really liked him. MI6 ruined my life, and I'd destroy the entire place if I could so they never get the chance to do it again."

Ross nodded. "Cunts, the lot of them," he agreed and watched Alex in silence as seconds ticked on. "Not all of the board were all that enthusiastic about Cossack's plan. Not after your dad screwed them over. He sold it on your potential. Hunter's son, raised from birth as a spy by the best surviving agent in MI6's arsenal. I wanted to push you proper today, see if you yielded. Didn't get as much as a whimper from you. Based on your performance out there, you know the consequences if you don't live up to their expectations."

Alex took a slow breath. "Yeah," he agreed softly. "I do."

"Oh, no need to sound so worried," Ross assured him. "You didn't just meet those expectations, you blew straight past them. You passed with flying colours, Mr Rider."

It was, Alex recognised with a chill, the first time the man had called him by name. Made him more than just an object to test, however friendly Ross had been towards him.

Alex nodded slowly. Felt his racing heartbeat slowly return to something closer to its normal pace.

"Thank you." He hesitated. "So now what?"

"You continue training," Ross answered like it was the most logical thing in the world. To him, Alex supposed it was. "You will be tied to SCORPIA for five years in an exclusive contract. I'll leave the paperwork here so you can go through the details in your own time before you sign. The job pays well, but you'll be paying off the cost of your training for the first few years, too."

Ross looked a little bemused when he continued. "Normally that would be the training at Malagosto. In your case it'll be whatever additional training you'll need, since Cossack handles your initial training on his own. If there's any payment there, it's between the two of you."

It sounded horribly like an actual, legitimate job and reminded him painfully of his circumstances with MI6. SCORPIA wanted an official contract with conditions and agreements for both parties. What did it say about MI6 that they didn't?

"Your missions will depend on your specific skills. Cossack is probably the best assassin in the world, so it would be a crime to waste him on anything else. Well, unless the payment is really good," Ross conceded. "In your case, we'll see how you turn out when your training is complete. Mostly assassinations, probably, but with your additional training and your experiences with MI6 … intel, too, I'm sure. Spying. Possibly all-around problem-solver for a client. It's rare to have someone of your age with such skill and it would be a shame to waste it. The closest we've had before is Cossack himself. Your age is a priceless asset right now. Damn shame not to use it."

Ross held out his hand. "The final decision is always with the board and Mr d'Arc, but in this case I don't think there'll be any doubt. Welcome to SCORPIA, Alex Rider."

Alex shook it without hesitation. "Thank you." Then he smiled a little wryly. "Thank you for not flunking me, too."

Ross laughed. "If that wasn't a pass, I don't know what was."

The man got up and stretched. Just like that the assessment was over and done with, and the business part of it was out of the way.

Ross had brought extra supplies with him and handled the cooking that night, classic Scottish fare. They ate somewhat later than Alex was used to but the company was nice and Yassen seemed to enjoy it, too.

"You've worked miracles with him out here," Ross told Yassen once the table had been cleared again and Alex had handled the dishes.

"Botanical lessons and torture techniques have remained mostly theoretical, of course," Yassen said modestly. "There are a number of things that still lack in his training, unfortunately. I do not have the resources of Malagosto here."

Ross shook his head. "His theory-based knowledge is better than some of our students' practical displays in the greenhouse. Have you started on resistance to interrogation?"

"I would prefer to do so in a more controlled environment with medical attention nearby."

Cold and clinical. The words still sent a chill down his spine and his heart racing. SCORPIA-based resistance to interrogation. It would probably make the brief RTI training at Brecon seem like a walk in the park, and he'd get to pay for the dubious privilege on top of that.

"Perfectly understandable," Ross agreed. He grimaced slightly. "Could take a while, though. It'll be a headache and a half, but we've started to relocate from Malagosto island. The Italian authorities have been twitchy since Cray's stunt, and after Invisible Sword they finally decided it was time to do something about us. We should have charged more for that bloody job. Keep the kid here. Safer and easier until things quiet down a little again. He'll be a high priority target soon enough."

It made sense, Alex supposed. A number of countries had grown far less tolerant of terrorist organisations in a post-Cray world. It made sense they would crack down on SCORPIA's activities where they knew about them, and it would definitely make sense they would want him dead or captured once the truth got out. Rogue agents, even conscripted ones, was something no intelligence agency tolerated.

"The client is dead," Ross continued. The man was a far more talkative type than Yassen would ever be. "Croaked a few days ago. That's one loose end tied up, at least. It was kept mostly out of the press. They have other things to write about."

The devastation and political tensions following Cray's attack. The SCORPIA attack in London. Alex could see why something could just slip by without notice.

Yassen didn't look remotely surprised. "Natural causes, of course."

"Of course. Heart failure, you know. A little young for it, but he was a hard-working man. It must be very stressful, having so much responsibility."

"CIA, then."

"That's the current theory," Ross agreed. "They have agents in the area. Could have been MI6, they were gunning for him, too, but it looks like the Yanks got him first."

His attention turned briefly to Alex. "He had pretty solid security. They might've used you for that one, if you'd hung around. A child could have slipped through security. It looks like they managed to turn someone on the inside in this case. Easiest way in."

Part of Alex wanted to argue. Another part of him wouldn't even have been surprised. They wouldn't have called it an assassination, of course. Maybe just have told him to leave something, somewhere, or taint the food with something – non-lethal, of course, to let another agent slip inside, that's all, Alex – and he would never have known he was a killer until he returned home.

"Rothman was in charge of the operation, was she not?" Yassen's words were more statement than question. Alex recognised the name from the structure of SCORPIA that Yassen had drilled into him as well.

Ross grimaced. "Rothman was apparently killed in the London raid. Nile escaped with a few new scars. We lost about two dozen guards as well."

Alex got the distinct impression that the last category was expendable.

Yassen was silent for a second. "Perhaps her death was for the better, if it can be confirmed."

Ross glanced at Alex again. "She was a little unpredictable. Absolutely ruthless woman. One of the most dangerous people I've ever known. Not someone you'd want to get on the bad side of. Rumour had it that she had a thing for your dad and took it a little personal when he turned her down."

"She was difficult to read when I reported my plans. She could have become an issue." The look in Yassen's eyes, cold and calculating, spoke volumes to Alex.

His attention turned back to Ross. "What is the probability that she is in custody?"

Ross looked grim. "Worse than we'd like."

Which meant MI6. Which meant that if she talked, they would find out about him, too.

Whatever Alex's own plans, there would be no turning back. He had done a runner with Yassen Gregorovich. Even if he returned as a double agent, even if he brought down all of SCORPIA single-handedly, they would never stop watching him.

Ross slept on the couch and left the following day with plenty of praise for Yassen's work with his young protégé. Alex's safety was ensured for at least a while longer.

Alex's INTERPOL listing upgraded him to _wanted person_ from _missing person_ two days later. The line that specified the charges as _terrorist activities_ was all the confirmation Yassen needed that Julia Rothman had been alive at least long enough to be interrogated proper.

Alex blamed MI6 for that, too. For Rothman and his INTERPOL listing both.

Part of him wished he could bring himself to care a little more. The rest of him knew it had only been a matter of time.

* * *

They left the cabin for a full week the day after Alex officially became a wanted person. It was the first time in nearly three months that Alex had been away from Yassen's safe-house for longer than it took to make a supply trip.

"Did Ian Rider teach you to drive?"

Alex shook his head. "I know the basics. Enough to get somewhere if I need to. I'm sure he planned to do it, but you killed him before he got the chance."

Three months in Yassen's company and under his tutelage meant that the words were calm and matter-of-fact more than anything. The bitterness still lingered in Alex, but he would be the first to admit that his situation with Yassen – with his uncle's killer - was complicated.

Yassen's training left Alex with little time to his own thoughts and definitely did not encourage distractions, but Alex still wondered sometimes what might have been. If Ian had lived. If Yassen hadn't murdered him. MI6 probably wouldn't have recruited him. Probably. Part of Alex wanted to believe that everything Ian had taught him had been to help him survive or to keep an overly-active, curious kid out of trouble. Part of him also knew his many Ian-encouraged hobbies fit terribly well with what MI6 was looking for.

How long would it have taken Blunt to spot him? Would he ever have, if Alex hadn't put himself on their radar? How long before Alex himself had grown too suspicious about Ian Rider's 'banking' job? A lot of things hadn't added up for a long time.

"You will learn properly, then. You will not be an expert driver in a week, but it will provide a solid foundation that can be improved upon later."

Alex just nodded. He had grown used to getting little to no warning about new lessons. Yassen didn't like to be predictable.

They spent five full days on Alex's driving lessons somewhere outside Moscow, early morning to late evening. Yassen cared little for Alex's exhaustion and wavering focus by the end of fourteen hours or more of almost non-stop instructions, day after day.

"You will not always have the luxury of being rested and clear-headed." Simple but merciless, like a number of Yassen's explanations, and Alex nodded tiredly and kept his attention on the road and Yassen's voice.

Seven long days later when Alex could finally collapse into the familiar bed in the cabin, he had never been so relieved to see Yassen's safe-house again.

* * *

The year would become known as an annus horribilis in terms of terrorist attacks. Alex wasn't surprised.

Air Force One was recovered from the North Sea well into October. The recovery teams had worked fast, but even then they had cut it close. It wouldn't be that much longer before the first storms of the winter seasons would arrive in those particular waters.

Whatever they found in the wreckage, the information remained heavily classified, though a number of photos were released. The tail with the American flag on it was mostly in one piece and its recovery became an iconic image of the salvage operation.

Ark Angel, the massive, multi-billion pound space station, suffered a catastrophic failure in early November. It disintegrated in the atmosphere and the remains either burned up or crashed into the Pacific as a string of burning metal. The few staff members on board at the time were all killed, though considering the consequences if the station had fallen to Earth in one piece, that was a very small number of casualties.

An act of terrorism was the immediate theory, and Alex couldn't blame them based on the events of the previous few months. Force Three, who had already been behind the kidnapping of Nikolei Drevin's son, claimed immediate responsibility. They were followed closely by several other more or less credible groups. SCORPIA remained silent.

Nikolei Drevin himself was arrested two days later on a number of charges ranging from resisting arrest, insurance fraud, and all the way to attempted mass murder. He had been about to flee to South America at the time the arrest was made.

For once it seemed that SCORPIA wasn't to blame. If even half the charges held – and the CIA had to have done a solid job, if they were willing to risk that sort of trial – Drevin had plenty of influence on his own to see that sort of thing done.

The question became purely academic shortly afterwards. Drevin died in prison from a ruptured brain aneurysm five days after his arrest. Absolutely nobody believed that story, but with no evidence and a lot of people with motives to see him silenced, there wasn't much anyone could do.

The conspiracy theorists had a field day. Life went on.

Alex started on Arabic in mid-November, when the weather grew increasingly cold and the first snow arrived. By then he hadn't heard or spoken English in weeks. He still read it online, but anything that he could not understand or express in Russian would be handled in one of the other languages he and Yassen had in common, usually French.

The Middle East had a large market for SCORPIA's particular types of business, and that was all the reason Yassen needed to teach him. Alex didn't doubt that once he had mastered Arabic to Yassen's standards, the next language would already be waiting.

The list of more or less natural disasters finished the first day of December with an earthquake in the Timor Sea. According to experts it was supposedly nowhere near as devastating as it could have been – Alex took their word for it, he wasn't a geologist - but it was bad enough to send several tsunamis surging towards the surrounding lands.

Even with the tsunami warnings sounded, the number of fatalities still inched close to five thousand, with a billion pounds or more in property and environmental damage.

Among the casualties were a group of eight celebrities and forty-something reporters gathered on Reef Island for a press conference. They did receive somewhat more coverage than the lesser-known victims but even those stories didn't last for all that long.

There were rumours about a terrorist attack, some weapon capable of setting off an actual earthquake, but if anyone had proof, they didn't go public with it.

Alex didn't want to ask. He had the suspicion he already knew the answer, but he still couldn't leave it alone. He had to know.

"SCORPIA?" His voice was resigned more than furious, too exhausted from a particularly brutal day of training to find the energy for anything more than weariness.

Yassen simply nodded.

"Why hasn't anyone said anything?" Alex continued. "They must have some kind of proof. You don't just go kick a fault line if you want an earthquake. You would need something to trigger it, and that's not exactly something you pick up at Tesco. It has to be something experimental, or the owners would have used it already."

Then again, they might just have saved it as a last resort, and who was he to say it hadn't been tested before? How would he even know in the first place if an earthquake was natural? He wasn't an expert.

"Few governments have an interest in the sort of issues that would come with making it public knowledge that they possessed such a weapon, much less that an organisation like SCORPIA stole and used it. For one, they would need to explain the existence of the weapon, as well as SCORPIA as more than just the minor terrorist threat they claim us to be. That would be followed by uncomfortable questions about why such a threat has not been eradicated in the first place. They would prefer not to hand us such publicity. SCORPIA will still be hunted for what happened, but that is easier done without the public watching their every move and demanding results. Even then, we are still useful to a number of governments. Sometimes it's preferable for them to buy their way out of distasteful jobs."

Of course it was. Alex wouldn't have been surprised if MI6 or the CIA had been right there on the list of clients.

Alex had known that SCORPIA was powerful. He had sat through Yassen's detailed lectures and warnings and paid very close attention.

Only now, staring at the map marking the epicentre of an artificially triggered earthquake, did it really start to sink in just what sort of behemoth he was up against.

* * *

A/N 1: Alex was accepted very easily in the SCORPIA novel. My headcanon is that part of the reason was that Rothman always intended to kill him. In this case Yassen had to convince the board that the sins of the father did not extend to the son. They take him serious as a legitimate operative – and potential threat – in a way they didn't in the book.

A/N 2: Ark Angel didn't succeed since the CIA was already on the case and still on high alert after Eagle Strike. As for Operation Reef Encounter … Alex wasn't there to get involved, but everyone was still twitchy after Cray and security was likely to be a lot higher than it had been in the canon version of events, so it could have gone either way. In this case it went SCORPIA's way.

Next: Malagosto


	5. Malagosto

A/N 1: Unless there are any objections, non-English will only occasionally be marked by italics in the future chapters. Malagosto uses English, but Yassen (and a number of others) might not always. It makes no difference to Alex if it's in one of the languages he speaks, and it looks a little awkward with everything in italics.

* * *

Yassen and Alex left Russia from Domodedovo International Airport in early December. The return trip to Moscow took significantly longer than the trip out had done due to winter weather and snow. The Hilux was built to handle it, but it was still slow, careful driving for the first many miles. They spent a night in a hotel about halfway to Moscow and Alex spent the time to get used to his new cover.

Alex had become Aleksandr Grigoryev, son of Vasiliy Grigoryev, Yassen's current identity. Dark hair dye, coloured contacts, and five months of hair growth ensured he looked very little like the Alex Rider that was a criminal wanted by the UK for terrorist activities.

Alex suspected they were going somewhere decently warm, since Yassen had ordered him to pack summer clothes, but he didn't know their actual destination until Yassen checked them in on the flight to Abu Dhabi.

"Vacation," Yassen told the young woman behind the counter. His Russian accent had shifted again to one Alex couldn't identify. Yassen could shift easily between three different accents in his native language that Alex had heard, and he could add a fourth to the list now. "A reward. My son did very well on his tests."

He sounded every bit the proud father. Alex supposed that for a certain interpretation, it wasn't even a lie.

Alex still didn't know the reason they were leaving, and Yassen didn't seem likely to share. The lack of information could be sensible paranoia or some sort of test. Knowing Yassen, it was probably both.

The clothes Alex had originally been given didn't quite fit anymore, but he suspected Yassen would dispose of them and buy new ones when they arrived to blend in better, anyway. It was just as well. Alex had grown more than an inch since his arrival in Russia and was in significantly better shape, too, which left most of his summer clothes a little short and somewhat awkward-fitting. The winter ones, save for his current outfit, had all been burned. They would not be used again, nor were they likely to fit if Alex ever returned to the cabin.

It was still a little unsettling to simply be told to pack and have no idea of where they were going or if they'd ever be back, but Alex had adapted to that as well. He had grown to like Yassen's safe-house, but like the house back in Chelsea, it was very likely the last time Alex had ever set foot there.

Home, in the future, would be a series of ever-changing hotels and safe-houses, interspaced with the occasional long-term mission with a slightly longer stay somewhere.

Home would never be anywhere personal again. No photos, no books or art or decorations he had any personal attachment to, nothing that could give a hint as to his person or plans, nothing that could not simply be destroyed at a moment's notice.

They landed in Abu Dhabi in the early evening and got through customs without any trouble. There was a driver waiting for them outside. Yassen obviously knew the man but didn't introduce him to Alex, and none of them spoke on the brief ride to the hotel.

"We leave tomorrow," Yassen told him when they were alone and the room thoroughly checked. There were still no further details, and Alex nodded. He was used to Yassen's behaviour by now.

They bought supplies in Abu Dhabi the following morning, just like they had on the way to Yassen's safe-house, but far more than Alex had expected. Not just training clothes or casual wear, but formal outfits as well. The sort that made Alex feel horribly stiff and awkward and reminded him more than anything of his uncle's funeral.

The driver was back when they arrived at the hotel again some number of purchases heavier. Ten minutes later their hotel room was cleared, and Alex found himself in a white Mercedes complete with air conditioning and what he strongly suspected was some fairly solid armour.

It was a short drive following the coast, nothing at all what Alex had expected based on the sheer distances in Russia. The weather outside was sunny and pleasant and just a little breezy, and even the sand, sea, sand of the world around them had a charm of its own. Very different from Yassen's safe-house, at least.

They turned down a smaller road and reached a large compound by the water that looked surprisingly new. The fence clearly meant business but had all the design of someone with money to spare. The home of someone wealthy rather than the terrorist training ground Alex strongly suspected it was.

Brand new buildings, large compound, expensive-looking exterior, a driver that Yassen knew, the numerous purchases Yassen had made for Alex, Ross' mention that the school on Malagosto would have to relocate – Alex had the strong suspicion that he was looking at SCORPIA's new school.

He glanced at Yassen. The man read the question in his expression and simply nodded.

Alex's apprehension joined with the sense of grim determination and quiet resignation to become an uncomfortable sense of lead in his stomach. No way out, then. There probably hadn't been a way out since he had left London with Yassen in the first place, but the heavy defences on the compound just drove home the finality of it. If they doubted him, he was dead. If he fell short of their expectations, he was dead. SCORPIA did not tolerate failure and they certainly didn't tolerate traitors. The only way he would ever be free of their grasp again was the complete destruction of the organisation, or if he got skilled enough to run and stay one step ahead of them for the rest of his life. He had tried to imagine a future like that, never settling anywhere and always looking over his shoulder. It wasn't a nice one.

There were guards by the entrance and they obviously took their job serious. They checked both car and passengers, though Yassen's presence along with the familiar driver seemed to keep the worst of it at bay. The thick columns by the gates, though … Alex would have been surprised if they didn't contain some kind of scanners. It was the only way through for any vehicle that wasn't prepared to go through the solid-looking fence instead, and Alex didn't doubt that said fence was lined with any number of vicious protections, too.

Alex was vaguely reminded of his arrival at Brecon Beacons. At least in terms of security and secrecy.

They pulled up in front of a large building in the shade of several palm trees and finally stopped.

"Our luggage will be seen to. Be respectful, show no weakness, do not trust anyone, and never allow yourself to feel safe. Never forget that this is Malagosto," were Yassen's brief instructions in Russian as he led Alex into the air conditioned shade of what looked like the entrance hall of an expensive villa.

It was a short walk to their destination one floor up and they met no people on the way. Yassen knocked once on a door at the end of a hallway and let both of them inside at the sound of a brief acknowledgement in French.

The office looked expensive. That was Alex's first impression. Understated, but clearly the office of someone in charge. It had a lot more things to look at than Blunt and Jones' very grey offices did, but he didn't doubt that the items said just as little about their owner. There was a man behind the desk, looking through a dossier. Oliver d'Arc – it could be no one else, based on Yassen's SCORPIA files – was small, with grey hair and a neatly trimmed black beard, and wore gold-rimmed glasses. For all that Alex knew better, he still looked utterly harmless.

D'Arc stood to greet them with a genuine smile. His handshake was strong and as friendly as the rest of his demeanour.

"Alex Rider! It's a pleasure to finally meet you. And Yassen! It has been far too long. You must teach a few classes while you're here. I insist!"

Yassen conceded with a slight nod but didn't offer a verbal response. It still seemed to be good enough for d'Arc. He was probably used to Yassen's less than chatty behaviour.

It was strange to hear English spoken again. D'Arc had only the slightest of accents, but Alex hadn't spoken or heard English for more than a month.

"I am Oliver d'Arc, the principal of this fine institution. Sit, please," the man said. He looked at Alex for a long moment and then smiled again, a little rueful. "My apologies. You look so much like your father, Alex. So much. I was not surprised that it was Yassen who found you and brought you here. If anyone could be his protégé, Hunter's son would be it. An exceptional student, our Cossack. Your father mentored him and turned him into the remarkable man that he is."

Alex wondered how his father had felt about that. He'd had a cover to keep, of course, but Yassen Gregorovich had turned into a formidable opponent and an exceptionally skilled killer. Would he still have saved Yassen's life, having known that? Alex suspected so. He sounded like that sort of person. John Rider seemed to have genuinely cared about the boy-assassin he had been given responsibility for.

"I'm not sure how much Yassen has told you about this institution, but we never have more than fifteen students," d'Arc continued. He sounded proud of his school. "We accept only the most promising applicants, we expect them to work hard, and we strive to provide them with the best education possible in return. It would be simply unforgivable to waste such potential. There are nine students at the moment, eight men and one woman. You will be the tenth. Far younger than the others, of course, but that will not be a problem. With your skills and potential, you will shine here, Alex."

Oliver d'Arc was good, Alex recognised that. Even knowing just what sort of organisation SCORPIA was and what they had done, something in Alex still felt proud at the words. At being spoken to not as a particularly clever child or a tool to be used and discarded as necessary, but as someone who mattered. Someone welcome, who wasn't looked down on because of his age but was judged based on what he could actually do. The easy acceptance, a world away from MI6 and the SAS, was appealing in a way he had never expected.

"Normally you would spend some days participating in classes to give me an idea of your potential and your suitability for this organisation before your real training started. In this case, however, Gordon handled your assessment and wrote a glowing report. Between his report and Yassen's own updates, we'll easily be able to tailor your training to your abilities. I have no doubt you will be an exceptional asset to SCORPIA. Yassen mentioned your doubts about your ability to kill, but we handle many other things than assassinations. Part of our strength is that we know our operatives. We will figure out what you do best and assign your jobs based on that. Trust us, Alex," he said, quite sincerely. "We want you to be happy with us."

Alex wasn't surprised the man knew. He would also not be surprised if every single detail about his life – certainly his MI6 one, and likely a lot of his private one, too – was available to these people. He got the distinct impression based on his talk with Ross that Yassen had to do some strong convincing to get the board to accept him, and they had enough connections to get whatever information they needed.

The irony of the principal of SCORPIA's school going out of his way to address any doubts Alex might have had about his decision when MI6 had resorted to blackmail wasn't lost on him.

"Malagosto holds fond memories for a lot of our graduates," d'Arc continued. "I hope it will do the same for you."

Alex had told himself he would be attentive, quiet, and keep an eye on everything, but he couldn't quite help himself. "I thought Malagosto was the island in Italy. Sir," he added belatedly.

D'Arc beamed. He seemed delighted about the question. "At its heart Malagosto is a school, and that means Malagosto is wherever its students are," he explained. "It has a valuable reputation and we saw little point in changing the name simply for a change in location."

That made sense, although the idea of brand-name terrorist training sounded utterly bizarre to Alex. But then, SCORPIA prided itself on being purely business. That would be incentive enough to protect a valuable brand.

"I make a point of meeting with every student here on a regular basis to discuss their progress and any adjustments we may need to make to their training, but if you have any questions or concerns, any at all, you know where to find me." D'Arc smiled. At that moment he looked like nothing more than a particularly earnest teacher worried about a favourite student.

It was a useful cover, Alex supposed. It made it very easy to forget that man had gone through Malagosto's training himself and done well enough to take over when the previous principal had been killed by one of his very own students. Yassen's lessons had been thorough and he had been quite clear that d'Arc was not to be trusted.

"Do you have any questions, Alex?"

"No, sir." None that he would admit to, anyway.

D'Arc looked pleased. "Excellent. I have a teacher waiting to give you a tour and show you where you'll stay during your time with us."

He waved them off with a small gesture. Alex had barely said a full sentence during the meeting, and Yassen hadn't spoken at all. D'Arc talked plenty for all three of them.

Gordon Ross waited outside the office. He wore a black t-shirt, matching cargo trousers, and brought with him a slight smell of gun smoke. He also looked somewhat more tanned than last time Alex had seen him. "Mr Rider, I see Cossack finally let you out to play!"

It was hard not to like the slight bit of familiarity in an otherwise completely foreign place, and Alex's smile was genuine. "Mr Ross. I got time off for good behaviour."

Ross laughed. "That's more than I ever did. When it comes to jailbreaks, if you want anything done, you have to do it yourself. Come along, let me show you to your room and give you a tour of this place."

The compound turned out to be even bigger than Alex had originally thought and had everything a well-equipped school for killers could wish for, including a number of shooting ranges and a helipad.

"It's a bit bigger than Malagosto island," Ross said at one point. "Same risk of having a missile land in our backyard, though. The Yanks and the Brits already know we've moved. They had Malagosto island under constant surveillance. Can't imagine they haven't set up the same for this, too. They aren't likely to want to deal with the headache it would cause if they did target us, but someone might still get an itchy trigger finger one day."

"Can't imagine why," Alex muttered. Yassen gave him a pointed look.

"Eh, what's life without a little excitement. Boring, that's what!" Ross sounded entirely too cheerful about the whole thing.

They got several curious looks on their way, aimed as much at Yassen as at Alex himself. They did make an interesting pair. One of the best contract killers in the world and a fourteen-year-old boy at SCORPIA's School for Assassins and Assorted Mischief.

Alex made a mental note not to share that name with Yassen.

The tour ended in the building by the water where students were housed. They had been assigned neighbouring rooms. Alex would be there for a while, even if he didn't know exactly for how long, and even Yassen planned to stick around for a few days to see Alex settled proper. Their luggage was already there. Alex wasn't even surprised.

Ross handed him a small stack of papers. "Your schedule and the plans for the next few weeks. You have an appointment for a check-up in fifteen minutes. Know the way on your own?"

Alex nodded. He had made a point to memorise what he could during the tour.

"Excellent." Ross smiled. "I'll drop by when you're back, we can head to dinner together."

He glanced at Yassen. "I've got class in half an hour. Feel like showing the kids how proper shooting is done?"

"Alex?" There was a dozen meanings in that one word. Alex could pick up most of them by now.

"Yes, sir." _I'll be fine, I'll behave, I'll remember my instructions._

Yassen watched him for a moment to judge the sincerity of his words. Then he nodded and allowed Ross to lead the way outside.

Alex took a deep breath. Felt quite abruptly the terror of being alone – completely alone – for the first time in months and surrounded by enemies.

He ruthlessly suppressed the emotion. He had known this would happen. He had known Yassen wouldn't be around to hold his hand forever. He would just have to deal with it.

Alex stared at the papers and the room that would be his world for the next however many weeks and months. It was small, but it had a bathroom of its own and the bed looked comfortable, which was all he really cared about. There was probably surveillance, too, but he expected that.

Unpacking could wait. The last thing he wanted was to be late for an appointment on his first day.

He found the clinic easily. It was in one wing of the main building and was brand new like everything else in the compound. The nurse was Italian and spoke about as much English as Alex spoke Italian, turning their conversations into gestures and simple sentences for the most part. Dr Javadi was Iranian, but unlike her subordinate, only a slight accent marked her as anything but a native English speaker.

The check-up took close to two hours and a number of tests for Alex. Yassen reappeared about halfway through and was promptly greeted by a pen and a fairly large medical questionnaire.

"I filled out most of it but some of it I don't know. Family history and stuff." Alex shrugged. "No one mentioned it to me, but I figured since you knew my dad ..."

"Well enough," Yassen agreed.

By the end of it, there was very little the small clinic didn't know about him. Between himself and Yassen, pretty much everything in the form had been filled out. There were things about his mum that neither of them knew, but the rest was fairly detailed.

"I have your records from Moscow as well," Dr Javadi said. "You remain in exceptionally good shape and health, but that is little surprise given your company. You've grown an inch and a half since then, too. Based on that and your father's appearance, I would expect you to grow probably another three inches or so before you reach your adult height."

Just shy of six feet, then. A nice, respectable height.

"You have had all the vaccines necessary at present. If you need any others, we'll handle it on a case by case basis. You will see me every two months for your regular check-ups. That is a requirement for all students. Any questions?"

"No, ma'am," Alex agreed, because it seemed like a safe bet to be polite to the person who was in charge of your medical care.

"Excellent. Dismissed, Mr Rider."

Alex left before she could change her mind and think of any further tests. He wondered if she'd had military training somewhere. Maybe she was just used to dealing with former soldiers. SCORPIA had a lot of those.

Ross met them at the residential building and talked about everything and nothing as they made their way to the dining room. He talked almost as much as d'Arc did, but Alex felt a lot less like checking his back for knives around him.

Dinner itself was a surprisingly classy affair. The dining room was vast but elegant; a world away from the mess hall at Brecon. With the small number of people in attendance – staff and students – it wasn't overly crowded, either. Food was served at the tables and polite manners were observed.

"You can eat in your room if you want," Ross told him as they stepped into the large room and Alex felt a number of people shift their attention to himself and Yassen. "Some do, but most like to be social, even just occasionally. Don't ask rude questions, don't budge into things that none of your business, and it tends to work pretty well. Got issues, take it outside and don't kill each other. It's a school, not prison."

That sounded like good advice when dealing with trained killers. Alex made note of it. He couldn't guarantee he would listen, but it was still solid advice.

There were a good deal more chairs than people, and Ross patted Alex once on the shoulder. "You'll be fine, don't worry. Cossack?"

Yassen took a slow look at the room and the people in it. Alex wondered what it was like to see a group of highly-dangerous people like that and know you were probably still the most lethal thing in the room. "D'Arc did express an interest in catching up."

There were only two available seats at the table where d'Arc had settled. Alex realised with a sinking feeling just what that meant the moment before Yassen glanced at him.

"I trust you can manage on your own without incident?" he asked dryly.

"I'm a _Rider,_ " Alex answered, just as dryly.

Yassen's pointed look spoke volumes and Alex couldn't help his laugh. "I'll be fine. I promise. I managed with the doctor, didn't I?"

A lingering look, probably to judge the amount of trouble Alex could get into on his own, then Yassen nodded and headed towards d'Arc's table with Ross. For a moment Alex felt like a deer caught in the headlights, alone in the middle of the room. Then he forced aside the emotion and headed for the closest table that seemed open to company.

Four people, all students that he had seen in classes during his tour. Three males and the only female student currently at Malagosto, and all of them looked curious about him. Alex did not enjoy being the centre of attention but in this case, at least it gave him a chance to make a decent first impression.

"Got room for an extra?" he asked.

"Please," one of the men said. His accent pegged him as American, West coast somewhere … if it was genuine, anyway. He also seemed to be one of the oldest of the students. Alex guessed somewhere around thirty. Most of them seemed to be in their mid-twenties. Old enough to have some experience but young enough to still learn and keep up with the pace.

"Collins," the man said and offered his hand.

Alex shook it once he had settled. "Alex. Nice to meet you."

"Rider, right?" Collins continued. "Been a lot of gossip about Gregorovich training John Rider's son. I don't think any of us realised how young you were. Fourteen? Fifteen?"

"Fourteen," Alex replied. It wasn't a secret and it was easily found, if nothing else because he was already a wanted man by the UK. "I turn fifteen in February."

The man next to Collins nodded. "A good age to start. You learn easier as a child. It will be a strong advantage as you grow." His accent sounded German and his eyes were bright blue, but he was the heavily tanned colour of someone who had spent a lot of time under an unrelenting sun. "Klaus," he introduced himself.

"I am Lucille," the woman by Alex's side added, and she definitely sounded French to Alex, "and this is Garcia," she finished with a slight nod to the last man at the table.

Garcia nodded in greeting. Alex nodded back.

He had no idea of how many of the names were real but it didn't really matter. He was used to any number of fake names himself. He would accept the information they gave him for now and if he wanted to dig for more, he would do it when they couldn't find out about it.

He wondered what people talked about in a place like this. Sports? Weapons? The best ways to kill someone?

In the end he settled for the safest option.

"So what can you tell me about the school? Yassen isn't the chattiest person around."

Collins laughed. "He lets his guns do the talking, and they say plenty. I'd heard about his skills but it's something else to see it in person. As for the school, you've obviously already met Mr Ross and Mr d'Arc, and as for the rest of the teachers -"

Alex would spend the rest of dinner surrounded by easy conversation, giving more or less truthful answers to the various questions he got and asking his own careful ones in return.

Malagosto was not a safe place by any means but it still made Alex feel uncomfortably at ease. Everyone had done a lot to make him feel welcome, sure, but that wasn't all of it. He fit in, he realised that evening when he was alone in his room. No one had questioned his right to be there, no one had doubted his abilities – here, Alex Rider was just another student and the son of a former instructor and operative that had been genuinely liked by all who had known him.

Alex was used to insane billionaires with elaborate plans to get even with the world for whatever it had done to upset them. He had been ready to hate Malagosto and every single person there and to spend the next however many months playing the careful role of the dedicated student. He had not been prepared for amoral assassins and potential mass murderers that made him feel at home.

 _Malagosto holds fond memories for a lot of our graduates,_ d'Arc had said.

Alex had the horrible suspicion that he would be one of them.

* * *

A/N 2: Since Alex's arrival at Malagosto got pushed three months, several of the students that were present have graduated by this time, including Walker and Amanda.

Next: Settling in and Christmas.


	6. Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot

A/N: Thank you for your reviews, and I hope you continue to enjoy the fic! :)

* * *

Malagosto was … strange. It took a while for Alex to get used to the climate. It was pleasant, and the buildings were all air conditioned, but training outside took a few days of adapting when you had arrived straight from the Russian winter.

The people were strange, too. Ten students including Alex himself, of which he was by far the youngest. No one seemed to hold his age against him, though. He was easily accepted as another student. It was well-known he was John Rider's son and Yassen Gregorovich's student, and people respected that. Alex's own determination to prove himself worthy of the time and effort Yassen had put into his training only added to the easy acceptance and genuine respect he got.

They treated him like an adult, Alex realised his second evening at the school. All of them did, not just the teachers. Not like a liability or an annoyance or a child, but like an adult. A little younger and smaller than most of them, but an adult in every sense of the word, with the rights and responsibilities that came with it.

If he was old enough to sign his future over to SCORPIA, he supposed it made sense he was old enough to be seen as an adult as well. It also meant no leniency and no excuses, but Alex could live with that. They expected him to keep up, and he worked hard to do just that.

Alex was also one of the several students that already had warrant for his arrest. SCORPIA treated that more like a minor bother than anything.

Yassen stayed at the compound for three days and even assisted with several classes. He was a living legend in their particular circles, and it was a little bemusing to Alex to see the other students' reactions to the man. Almost everyone at Malagosto was a skilled sharpshooter, SCORPIA would accept nothing less, but Yassen Gregorovich was in a league all of his own.

It also gave Alex an idea of the standards he had been held to those five months under Yassen's tutelage. He wasn't in Yassen's league and wouldn't be anywhere near for years to come – if ever – but he was at the top of his Malagosto class by a comfortable lead.

In retrospect, it was no wonder he'd had to work so hard to live up to Yassen's expectations. The man had clearly decided to hold Alex to his own standards and expected him to succeed or kill himself trying. Failure had not been an option. Not with SCORPIA watching and waiting in the wings.

Yassen was off again on the fourth day on some assignment or another, and for the first time in almost half a year Alex was entirely on his own. Surrounded by people, of course, but on his own.

He quite abruptly missed Yassen's constant presence and the implicit protection it offered.

An operative called Nile became his mentor while Yassen was gone. He was young, maybe in his mid-twenties, and moved with the same grace that Yassen did. Alex wondered if it came naturally or if Malagosto had taught them. He was black but with white blotches on his skin that could have been scars of some kind, and he had several large, vivid red scars on his right arm that looked very new. Alex recognised his name from Ross' comments about the London attack. He supposed the scars came from that, but he figured it was smarter not to ask.

Nile was also surprisingly friendly and good company. Alex had been surprised at Gordon Ross – it was just a little unnerving to be around someone who felt like they could have been an old friend and know they had been ready to kill you – but Nile was one step beyond it.

He was a genuinely helpful, easy-going person who was happy to assist Alex when he was lost in the middle of the compound or had questions about something or another. He seemed to have a deep respect for John Rider and Yassen Gregorovich both, which seemed to carry over to Alex as well.

"It's a delight to finally have you here. Cossack told us about you, of course, but he insisted on keeping you in the safe-house until your basic training was complete. John Rider's son … you look so much like your father."

"You knew him?" Alex asked curiously.

Nile laughed. "Do I look that old to you, Alex? No, I have seen photos and recordings, nothing more. I trained at Malagosto some years later."

Photos. _Recordings._ Alex took a slow breath to calm the sudden rush of nerves. He had only ever seen a few photos. Nothing else. Ian had rarely ever even spoken of him, but these people – some of them had _known_ his father. Trained with him. And yes, he had been a deep cover agent, but … like Yassen, they had stories of him. Stories they might even share.

Don't show weakness, Yassen had said, but – his _father._

"Can I see them?" Alex asked quietly. "I never … no one ever shared a lot of things about my father with me. Ian or MI6."

"Ian Rider?" Nile continued without waiting for an answer. "I never got the impression they were very close. You should have been brought up by proper family. Not a man who left you alone more often than not. It was wonderful news when Cossack found you. It was a shame you never got to meet Mrs Rothman. She and your father were close."

Alex remembered Yassen and Ross' conversation about her. Close. Right. He didn't comment, though. He got the distinct impression that would have been a bad idea.

"I'll have someone deliver you copies of everything we have," Nile continued. "You should not have gone fourteen years without seeing a recording of your father when MI6 and Ian Rider had access to any number of them. Safe, declassified ones, too."

Alex nodded. Something in his chest clenched at the thought. His _parents._ "Thank you."

"You're very welcome. Mr Ross tells me you're doing exceptionally well in his class," Nile prompted. He took his job as Alex's substitute mentor serious.

Alex knew what Nile was hinting at. He could hit the adult size cut-out targets just fine, fast and accurate without fail. Yassen had accepted nothing less, and even the horror of shooting human-shaped targets with print-outs of real faces on them dulled after he had done it often enough. He had flat-out refused shoot at the child-shaped ones, and Yassen had not forced him. Ross had tried to convince him as well, with no success.

"I don't want to be a killer, but I know I won't have much choice. I refuse to hurt a child. You can't make me." The last sounded almost petulant, too much like the teenager that he was.

Nile laughed. "It's easy to forget how young you are sometimes." He fell silent and when he spoke again, his voice was a little softer and far more serious. "Most people would have a hard time killing a child, Alex, even people like us."

 _I'm sure you would_ , Alex agreed darkly. Not that it would stop them. Invisible Sword would have killed thousands of children. Sayle would have killed millions. SCORPIA didn't care as long as the payment arrived on time.

"It's not as hard as you think, to kill someone. I was eighteen the first time I took a life. Younger than most, certainly, but it was as easy as breathing. You will look back on your first job and wonder why you worried so much, you'll see."

Alex was afraid of that. It would make his life easier if it turned out to be the case, but he didn't like what it would make him. He was also in too deep to get back out alive, and he never forgot it. If he put his foot down, if he refused, if he went against orders, he had better make sure it was something worth his life, because he was not likely to survive the consequences.

"Yassen told me the same. Well, in fewer words and a bit harsher," Alex amended.

"You should listen to him," Nile agreed. "He is the best SCORPIA ever trained. Remember, you still have time. It will be months before your first assignment."

Nile probably meant that reassuringly. Alex really didn't agree.

* * *

Malagosto's teachers were unusual, too. Alex had already met Ross and been given a thorough briefing about the rest from Yassen, but it still didn't prepare him for the real life versions of them.

Alex was used to Yassen's martial arts lessons, but he quickly learned to fear Professor Yermalov. The man was incredibly skilled and obviously dangerous. He was also a brutal instructor, absolutely merciless, and with no patience at all for mistakes. He seemed to take Alex's age as a challenge, too, and held him to standards that Alex was sure Yassen met easily but which Alex himself had no hope of ever living up to.

The logic seemed to be that a child's mind was flexible and the more Alex learned now, the better he could build on it in the future. He would be grateful later.

Alex learned a lot from Professor Yermalov. At the very top of the list was 'Don't get into close combat with a Malagosto-trained operative'.

The Countess was probably the most regal, graceful person Alex had ever met. She was well into her sixties, her hair was grey and pinned into an elegant hairdo, and her clothes never had even a speck of dust on them. Her classroom – her home, really, an entire floor in an Abu Dhabi skyscraper that they visited every week or so – was all understated aristocracy.

Alex felt like a peasant.

Ian Rider had taught him the manners to handle himself in most situations, and Yassen had continued that, but they were both rank amateurs compared to this woman.

Eijit Binnag ("Please, Alex, call me Jet.") was as graceful and elegant as the Countess in her own way, even if she spent most of her time in the greenhouse.

Alex was not a big gardener, but even he could appreciate the deadly properties of her many plants, especially when there was always the risk someone might use them against Alex himself. Yassen had gone through a lot of the basic theory but it was something else entirely to have the lessons surrounded by several dozen plants all capable of killing him in more or less horrific and painful ways. Some were quick, painless killers. A number of them most definitely weren't.

Alex learned a healthy fear of a number of harmless-looking plants and a whole new respect for gardeners.

* * *

Then there was Dr Steiner.

Dr Steiner was a psychiatrist and something about him made Alex second-guess every answer he gave.

There had been a Rorschach test during Alex's second day at the school. After five months of Yassen's training, every last one of them had reminded him of death.

 _Herod Sayle's corpse and the shadows it had cast in the sunlight._

 _The MP-443 Grach that Yassen had repeatedly pulled on him without warning to test his ability to deal with an armed attacker._

 _General Sarov's suicide and the slowly spreading pool of blood._

 _A Portuguese man o' war._

 _An exploding helicopter._

Alex had suppressed his instinctive shudder and rattled off his answers in the same calm, clear, even way that Yassen had expected him to answer any question in. This was just another test in a long line of them. It was easy to slip into the same mindset and keep the memories a bit more at a distance in the process.

The psychologists at MI6 would have had a field day with it, Alex was sure. He wondered what Dr Steiner made of it. The man gave no indication of his thoughts but kept up the patient, interested expression he had worn every single time Alex had seen him, from the sessions in his office to a brief glimpse in the dining room.

"Do you think a lot about death, Alex?" Dr Steiner asked the second time Alex saw him for a psychological evaluation.

Did he? Alex supposed it was only natural, being around Yassen Gregorovich, and told the man as much.

"And before?" Dr Steiner asked in mild encouragement. "Ian Rider was killed in March, was he not? He was your guardian?"

Something about the way the man said it sent a flare of pain through Alex. He didn't let it show.

"Yes. And yes, he was."

"By Mr Gregorovich."

Alex swallowed. "Yes."

Dr Steiner made a note. Alex wondered if it was anything that mattered or just another way to unsettle his patients. "Your uncle – he never told you the truth about his work, did he?"

"He said he was a banker." The silence and the short sentences started to feel uncomfortable. Alex forced himself to continue. "They told me he died in a car crash. Hadn't been wearing his seatbelt, you know, dreadful business. I only found out the truth because I didn't believe them and investigated myself."

"Indeed?"

"He always used his seatbelt. Always. Maybe they didn't know, or they didn't care enough to make the cover story fit right." Or maybe it had been a way to lure him in. He wondered sometimes. At what point did it turn from reasonable suspiciousness to paranoia?

"MI6 never cared much once their agents were dead," Dr Steiner agreed. "Few agents have families. Those that do, the families rarely question what they are told by a respected authority. MI6 sees little reason to put the resources into anything but the most basic of cover stories when those resources are better used elsewhere, I suppose."

Alex shrugged, all the comment he felt like. It sounded plausible to him.

"And you, Alex?"

Alex didn't bother to hide his confusion. "Sorry?"

"They sent you on three high-risk missions. Perhaps they didn't know immediately how dangerous it would be, but they made no attempt to pull you out when the truth became clear, did they? You came close to death a number of times."

Maybe they hadn't cared. Maybe they hadn't believed him when he told them the seriousness of the situation. His money was on the former.

"I don't think they really cared. I was just another tool they could use. At the most it would be a little more inconvenient if I died, just because of my age, but I was never officially employed by them. Even if someone traced it back to them, they could claim they had nothing to do with it." He hesitated and wondered if he should continue. "If I'd died somewhere, they would probably have claimed it was complications to whatever illness they used as a cover that time. Weak immune system after my uncle's death and all that."

"There are no heroes in intelligence work," Dr Steiner agreed. "The ones that live can never speak of it. Those that don't will be given nothing but a grave, empty more often than not, and a memory built on lies. They never acknowledged the full truth of your uncle's work, did they? Not even to you. Fifteen or more years of dedicated service, and only vague platitudes to show for it."

Alex thought about his uncle, about his father – who would never be anything more than a disgraced soldier turned hired killer to the world – and wondered. Did it make a difference that they themselves knew what they had done? How many people they had saved? Did it matter if the rest of the world didn't know?

The choice had been easy in Murmansk. Terrifying but easy, because Alex hadn't had an alternative he could accept. He imagined himself bleeding out in the middle of nowhere in MI6's service instead, alone and cold and scared, with no guarantee that anything he had done would matter in the end, and he imagined Jack and Tom and the bland lie they would be given about his death.

It wasn't the sort of life he wanted. It wasn't the sort of death he wanted, either, but he had accepted that he would never die of old age. He would be lucky to see twenty. How long would he have survived with MI6? To fifteen? Sixteen?

"It was need to know. I guess I didn't need to know." He sounded bitter. He was fourteen, discussing the death of his only remaining relative. He was allowed to be bitter about it. "They liked to keep me in the dark. Maybe they just didn't trust me. They didn't send me backup at Point Blanc when I called for it. When I finally got out on my own, they sent me back in. Manipulated me into it when I flat-out refused. They sent in the SAS, too. One of them died. Maybe his family didn't know what he had done, but they knew he had died a hero. Died fighting for something. I would just have been another unfortunate casualty."

"The truth about intelligence work, unfortunately." Dr Steiner sounded understanding. "You are not the first person to have decided they had enough of it. Rogue agents are more common than most agencies would admit. It's not hard to understand why, is it?"

It wasn't. Not when Alex was one of those rogue agents himself. He imagined being a little older, with a few more experiences of backup that never arrived, sent to his potential death again and again with vague reassurances that it was perfectly safe and with next to no information to go on …

No, Alex decided. It wasn't hard to imagine why someone would have had enough.

"You are not alone here, Alex. There is no shame in wanting to live. You will never regain the childhood MI6 took from you, but you can control your own future. Here, they can take no more from you than you allow them to."

Calm, understanding, reasonable, and able to make murder sound like the most sensible thing in the world. Alex would never like Dr Steiner or his ability to get into someone's mind, but he could see why SCORPIA employed him.

* * *

Alex Rider celebrated Christmas in Dubai at a hideously expensive restaurant of the sort with a strict dress code and a menu that depended on the whim of the executive chef.

He wondered if they had done the same in Italy, gone out to celebrate the holidays, or if this was some concession due to his age. If it was, he couldn't bring himself to mind. The Countess turned the whole thing into a lesson, and conversation was light but cheerful, and when they returned to the compound, Alex found two wrapped presents in his room.

The first was from Nile and consisted of a thick folder and a USB drive. When Alex opened the folder, the very first thing inside was a photo of someone who looked a little like what Alex imagined he might look like as an adult. It was John Rider, familiar to Alex from the few photos they had kept in the house in Chelsea, and he felt his breath hitch. There were other photos as well, photos and documents and probably recordings on the USB drive, and Alex gently closed the folder again to look through in the morning.

The second present was a phone and a note in Yassen's standard handwriting with two numbers, the first of which was circled. The second had the American country calling code.

Alex hesitated for only a second before he called the circled number. The phone rang once before it was picked up.

" _You're back late, Alex,"_ Yassen said without bothering with a greeting. He sounded like he was in a good mood, though. Alex had learned to pick up on the tiny hints in his voice.

"We spent the evening in Dubai," Alex said by way of explanation. "I see Santa dropped by. I'm pretty sure that's a mistake. I like to think I've worked hard to get on the naughty-list."

" _Ross delivered it for me. It's a burner phone,"_ Yassen said from wherever he was, Alex had no clue and didn't ask. _"Untraceable as long as you keep the conversation shorter than four minutes. Call your Jack Starbright on the second number and destroy the phone afterwards. I am aware you fear to bring her to our attention, but you should be well aware by now that there is little SCORPIA does not know about you. I trust you to put your lessons and common sense to good use."_

Assume MI6 and SCORPIA will pick every word apart, say nothing incriminating, give no hint about his plans or location. It was probably a test, but it was also _Jack._

Alex took a breath. Tried to keep his voice steady, and didn't quite succeed.

"... Thank you," he said quietly. "I didn't get you anything."

" _You have done very well, Alex. That is gratitude enough for me._ "

Alex smiled, even if Yassen wouldn't see it. "Still, thank you. Merry Christmas."

He could almost hear the faint amusement in Yassen's voice, one of the small reminders that the man was far more patient with Alex than with anyone else. _"Merry Christmas, Alex."_

Yassen hung up. Alex lowered his hand and noticed distantly it was trembling.

 _Jack._

With the door closed, Alex's room was soundproof, and the night outside was still and quiet. Even if MI6 or the CIA or someone else recorded the whole conversation, there would be nothing to give away his location. And Yassen had given him permission. Had pretty much made it an order.

His hand was still shaking as he set his alarm for three and a half minutes – just in case – and called the number.

It was picked up on the third ring.

" _This is Jack Starbright, if this is Santa, my nieces have been naughty and would like to return their presents. In fact, they want to give them all to me instead."_

Someone protested loudly in the background – children, based on the sound of it.

Alex gave a startled laugh. "Hey, Jack. It's Alex."

There was a scrambling sound that he interpreted as a phone almost being dropped.

" _Holy shit, **Alex**?"_

"Yeah. Merry Christmas," he said softly, in lack of anything better. "I've only got about three minutes on this phone, then I have to run, but I wanted to let you know I'm okay and that I'm sorry for running off like that."

" _You should be! Do you have any idea of how worried we were?"_ She made a sound that was half laugh and half sob. _"Oh, Alex."_

Alex winced. "I'm sorry. About the questioning and stuff, too. I heard about it."

" _Yeah, they weren't too happy with you. Not much we could help with, though. Your letters were spectacularly useless."_ She seemed to have picked up on his avoidance of any specific terms and played along. He doubted it would make a difference but it was still a good precaution.

He laughed in spite of himself. "Hey, I worked hard on those things!"

" _'Sorry, I'm off to see the world'? And the next thing we know, you're off with a contract killer and wanted for terrorist activities? Alex!"_

Guilt settled heavy in his chest. "Yeah. I'm sorry. About everything." He was saying that a lot. He was pretty sure he owed them that, that and a lot more.

" _Oh, Alex,"_ she sighed, a little tired and a little resigned, and he knew he was forgiven in spite of everything. _"I don't suppose you can tell me where you're at?"_

"I'm afraid not. I'm doing all right, though. All healthy, no injuries or anything." Minor lie. Some bruises from close combat but that came with the territory. It wasn't anything he even noticed much anymore.

" _Well, that's new,"_ she said, a little sarcastic but mostly affectionate. _"Three minutes, huh?"_

"Well, more like a minute and a half now. You're back in the States?"

" _ **They** wanted me to stay in case you came back, but I couldn't."_ Her voice was quiet and a little hurt in a way he never wanted to hear again. _"Everything was quiet and empty. It was too much. Last I heard, the Bank kept the house in case you come back. They figured it was somewhere familiar, I think, so you might seek it out. So, you know, don't."_

Alex smiled. "Helping a wanted criminal now?"

" _Well, someone should. If those people hadn't made you do this -"_ she cut herself off before she could start on the rant that was familiar to both of them.

There were a lot of what-if's in Alex's life. MI6 was involved in most of them in some way or another.

"Would you let Tom know I'm okay? This phone is only good for this one call, and I want him to know, too." If SCORPIA knew about Jack, they knew about Tom. They probably even knew the contents of his letter. It didn't make sense to stay quiet, then. He wanted Tom to know he was all right, at least, even if he couldn't call himself.

" _As soon as we hang up,"_ Jack promised. _"It's a little late over there but I know he'll appreciate it. He didn't take it too well, either, but I think he understood. I explained things and … yeah. He got it."_

He would, too. Tom was that sort of person. The guilt tightened in his chest, the painful knowledge that this wasn't just him throwing his life away, that there were people that cared -

"I'm sorry." He tried to put everything into those two words and hoped she understood.

" _I know,"_ she said softly. _"Thank you for the call. I've been worried, but you knew that. It was good to hear you're still alive, even if that's all you can tell me. I'll keep this number if you get the chance to call me again. Merry Christmas, Alex."_

"Merry Christmas, Jack," he responded just as softly.

He hung up well before before the alarm went off. Then he picked the phone apart and destroyed the individual pieces.

They were probably the strangest two Christmas presents he had ever been given, but right there and then, he couldn't think of better ones.

* * *

A/N: I haven't been able to find a decent codename for Alex, so any suggestions would be welcome. Some kind of large cat (probably Puma) is an option as deliberate mockery on SCORPIA's part of the 'Cub' name the SAS gave him, or 'Hound' as a reference to Hunter, but I don't really like either of them. So yeah, ideas are welcome!

Next: Yassen returns.


	7. The Complete Curriculum

A/N: Thank you for your reviews! I should have answered all of the ones I could (logged in and with PM enabled), otherwise feel free to kick me about it.

* * *

In the little spare time Alex had in the days after Christmas, he watched every recording Nile had given him of John Rider's time with SCORPIA and went through every photo and file.

At the end of it, he still had a hard time connecting the image of John Rider, the man almost universally liked by the people who had known him, with the skilled, ruthless killer he had become by necessity.

They had a video of Albert Bridge and his father's faked death. They had videos of various tests of him as a prospective student. They had videos of several of the classes he had taught. There had even been a video of one of his assassinations.

Alex stared at the screen for a long time after that one finished. He had seen people killed before. It was somehow different to see someone dead by his own father's hand, and he wasn't sure what to think about it.

His father had been an expert sharpshooter, exceptionally skilled in unarmed combat – and from all accounts, an utterly merciless killer when necessary. Some of the assassinations had been faked, Yassen had said. He hadn't been sure, but Alex took his instinct for pretty much the proof it was. Some had been faked. Most of them hadn't.

That person on the screen, the calm, meticulous assassin, would have to be him sometime soon. His father had been close to thirty at the time. At best Alex would have barely turned fifteen.

The files raised as many questions as they offered answers. Alex knew more about his father than he ever had before, at least the undercover version of him, but there was so much more he would probably never know. Not to mention anything about his mother.

Three days after Christmas, d'Arc sent him off on a string of courses outside of the compound and Alex's spare time dropped to nothing for two full weeks. He was well ahead in most of his classes thanks to Yassen's training, d'Arc had explained, which only made it logical to ensure he got the most out of his education.

Evasive and defensive driving in a range of different vehicles and environments, executive protection, an entire course focused on car theft, sabotage, and carjacking … Alex got the distinct impression SCORPIA was testing him to see exactly what they had to work with.

None of the instructors looked fazed by the fourteen-year-old that was very obviously too young to drive a car. They didn't ask, just moved straight on and treated Alex – Benjamin, as he was known for the duration of the courses - like he was just another student. They reminded Alex a bit of SCORPIA's instructors like that. Maybe they were just used to rich kids treating Dubai and Abu Dhabi like their playground, and Alex was just one more on the list. Maybe they were used to SCORPIA's occasional business.

There were no other students, either, which meant that when Alex did return to Malagosto for the night, he only managed to get something to eat before he collapsed in bed and slept until the alarm went off again entirely too early.

At the end of the two weeks, the normal schedule at Malagosto seemed like a vacation in comparison.

Yassen returned in middle of January, two days after the last driving course. Alex had a horrible suspicion about what was next on the study schedule.

Yassen had said he would be there when Alex had to go through resistance to interrogation. It was as much a promise of some degree of support as it was an incentive to make Alex do that much better so he wouldn't disappoint his mentor.

By all accounts, Alex was doing great in all of his classes, from Arabic to unarmed combat. D'Arc was delighted, and Nile had been pleased with his progress during Yassen's month away. The only thing that still hung heavily above him was the resistance training, one of the last things any student went through at Malagosto.

Klaus had vanished shortly after Christmas for what Alex learned was the standard way to handle that particular course. He reappeared two and a half weeks later, looking significantly worse for wear. It hadn't exactly inspired confidence in Alex in regards to his own ability to deal with that sort of thing. The man had trained with the Taliban. If he looked like that after several weeks in Dr Three's care, Alex had no idea of how he was supposed to handle it.

Stubbornness, probably. There weren't a lot of other ways he could do it, and he knew it. He had learned the theory, as they all had, but he knew it would be very different when he was actually in the middle of it.

He would have to keep his mouth shut one way or another. They might not entirely trust him yet, they might not believe he was loyal, but they had no proof. Just the ghost of John Rider to remind them. If he said the wrong thing, he was dead. If he said too much about anything he shouldn't, they would decide he wasn't trustworthy under pressure, and he was probably dead, too. So he would have to be stubborn and say absolutely nothing.

Having Yassen back was both a relief and a source of dread. Alex genuinely liked Nile on some level, but he never quite forgot that the man would kill him in a heartbeat if SCORPIA ordered him to. Alex trusted Yassen. He was cold and ruthless at the best of times, but Alex trusted him. Yassen might still kill him one day, but at least Alex knew he didn't want to.

He wondered how his life had turned into the sort of thing where 'might kill him but doesn't really want to' was the baseline for trustworthy. It wasn't the sort of thing he wanted to linger on.

Yassen's arrival also brought with it the clear reminder that Alex was fast approaching graduation – and with it his first solo assignment. His first murder. Alex didn't want to linger on that, either.

The two weeks that followed were an exercise in paranoia and restless energy. By the end of it he just wanted it over with. Anything was better than the wait, though he was sure he would change his mind soon enough.

Alex woke up in very early morning the last day of January to Yassen casually seated in the office chair in his room. It brought back vivid memories of first time Yassen had pulled that stunt, though at least this time Alex didn't have a gun aimed at him.

When Yassen spoke, he did so in Russian as well.

"In most cases the students here go through resistance to interrogation with no warning," Yassen said calmly, casually, like he was discussing the weather. "They go to sleep in their own bed and wake up in a cell. I will give you the choice. You can go willingly, with full knowledge of what you will face, or I can sedate you, and you will not remember this conversation. You will simply wake up some hours from now already in a cell."

Another test, Alex was sure, though he wasn't sure what sort or what the right answer might be. Maybe there wasn't one. There wasn't always. It had taken him a while to get used to that.

Alex considered the options. Sedated would mean the shock of waking up in Dr Three's tender care, and he doubted that would be a nice wake-up call. Go on his own would be a long walk and probably an immediate start on RTI training instead of the few more hours of rest. He was sure Yassen appreciated the psychology behind that option as well in making Alex explicitly accept however many days of torture of his own free will.

Fear curled in the pit of his stomach, fear and apprehension, and he took a slow breath to steady himself before he answered.

"I'll go myself. Can't turn down an offer like that, can I?"

There was a ghost of approval in Yassen's expression. It had been the right answer, then. Alex had suspected as much. Yassen was the type who appreciated facing the reality of your situation with your eyes wide open.

Yassen stood, and Alex slipped out of bed to follow him. He didn't bother to change from his thin sleepwear. He doubted he would get to keep it, anyway.

The walk to Dr Three's domain was long and felt even longer. The world was utterly still and mostly dark beyond the gates to the compound. The water was calm and the sky cloudless and in any other situation Alex would have appreciated the peace and quiet.

Light spilled out of the windows, almost painfully bright. Alex didn't want to head inside but he did, anyway, and knew there would be no changing his mind then. Not with Yassen at his back. He kept his steps calm and steady – he didn't want to find out the punishment if he went back on the agreement and faltered – and he knocked firmly on the door Yassen guided him to without any prompting.

"Alex! Do come in."

Dr Three sounded like the perfectly gracious host. He smiled when Alex and Yassen stepped inside and the door closed softly behind them.

The sound of no escape. Alex wondered if just waking up from a sedative would really have been that much worse. The two weeks of waiting suddenly didn't seem so bad anymore.

"Welcome to one of the most important courses you will go through here," Dr Three said with genuine pride in his voice. "Do not expect to be able to escape, but feel free to try, anyway. Resist in any way you can, Alex. Fight, escape – if we can't hold you, it's a learning experience for all of us."

Dr Three's good mood was downright unnerving. If he had any problems with torturing a fourteen-year-old, it didn't show. Then again, SCORPIA considered Alex an adult, anyway, so it was probably just as well.

Alex swallowed. Yassen's presence in the room seemed that much more ominous with those words, and the theoretical lessons he had been given in resisting seemed very far away. "Right. Any other last minute things I should be aware of?"

The man looked thoughtful. "You are one of SCORPIA's now. Don't expect the benefit of human rights if you're captured alive. There are quite a lot of governments with a grudge against us. They take such offence to simple business transactions."

Business transactions. Alex wondered if that was the politically correct term for nuclear explosions and artificial earthquakes.

A flicker of movement behind him was all the warning he got. He turned a half-second too late to see Yassen's fluid motion before he twisted Alex's arm and brought him to his knees with a flare of pain. His shoulder stung briefly – a needle, he recognised that feeling – and then the contents of it kicked in.

The world tilted sideways, spun briefly, and then Alex knew no more.

* * *

Alex Rider spent the first two weeks of February handcuffed in a cell under Dr Three's not particularly tender mercies.

The only concession to his health was the number of small medical instruments on him, measuring everything from heart rate to blood oxygen levels. He was a student of Malagosto, after all. They didn't want him to suffer permanent injury or death. Not on accident, at least.

Yassen's presence during the sessions were both a source of terror and comfort. The fear of failure and the reassurance of someone he trusted, even if some of the interrogation was by Yassen's hand. He had heard somewhere that Yassen had been a talented student in the art of pain. He believed that now.

Alex had lost track of time almost immediately. There were no windows and his world had narrowed down to an endless day of sleep deprivation, bright lights and loud noises, freezing water mixed with electricity, and a number of different experiments in pain.

Dr Three was a meticulous man and took his time recording Alex's reactions.

"Everyone has a weakness. And I do so enjoy the creativity required when I need a subject alive and functional."

"Maybe try a different hobby? I hear great things about stamp collecting," Alex offered sarcastically one of the first days. It wasn't a smart idea, but he didn't care all that much at that point.

Dr Three glanced past Alex, to where Yassen waited silently. "A reminder, if you would be so kind."

Alex didn't hear Yassen move but he felt the moment strong fingers dug into his skin and something _twisted._

Alex screamed before he could stop himself. One of his nerves felt like it was on fire, from the back of his leg and all the way to his neck, and in the wake of it his muscles cramped painfully.

"Thank you, Yassen. Precise as always. Your input is not required at this time, Alex. Rest assured I will tell you when I want you to speak."

Alex almost opened his mouth to snap back. Remembered the white-hot flare of pain and stayed silent.

"You see, Alex, the right pain will teach anyone to obey," Dr Three explained almost kindly. "Why don't we see if we can find the one that will work with you?"

 _No,_ Alex thought, but he stayed silent. No way out but through. He would manage somehow. He had to.

Alex didn't sleep much those two weeks. Occasionally he blacked out and would be forced painfully out of blissful nothingness some indeterminable time later. He learned to fear unconsciousness because waking up was an ever-changing experience in terror.

For the most part he woke up at the first physical contact but the longer his sleep deprivation lasted, the longer it took him to react to that threat. The worst of the times he didn't wake up until he was already submerged in the shock of cold water and burning lungs and _no air_ as he instinctively inhaled and got nothing but water.

He lashed out blindly, struggled hard against the merciless grip on him and felt the handcuffs dig into open wounds as a distant burn, and he _couldn't breathe -_

\- And his head was pulled out of the water and he coughed water and spit until his lungs were burning and his throat felt raw and his eyes stung with tears.

A strong hand gripped his neck and forced him to his knees. Some distant part of him recognised it as Yassen.

Dr Three crouched in front of him and tilted his head up in mocking gentleness. "You're crying, Alex. Drowning is horrible business, isn't it? It is not an easy death, and it would be so easy to miscalculate and leave you underwater for too long. I'm used to older research subjects, after all. You know we can end this any time you want. Just tell me something useful, and we can put this unpleasantness behind us. A safe-house. The names of your fellow students. The security measures at Malagosto."

Fear gripped Alex's mind, the raw terror of drowning and the even stronger fear of failure. Whatever he said, he would suffer, but failure was not an option. He took a steadying breath and found his voice – hoarse and little more than a whisper, but steady. Steadier than he could ever have hoped for. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Alex was pulled back up and his head pushed back underwater before he could take another breath. He tried to push back, but Yassen's grip was utterly unyielding, and all he managed was to burn through the little air he had left. He kept his mouth closed for as long as he could, felt the burn in his lungs, the desperate need to _breathe_ -

\- And right as he was about to give up, when black spots were creeping into his vision, he was pulled back out and thrown on the floor.

He inhaled sharply and triggered another coughing fit, and by the time it was over and he could breathe somewhat normally again, he was crying and his eyes were red and burning.

Dr Three nudged him with the tip of his shoe. "Nobody would let a worthless little thing like you out alone." The words were vicious but his voice remained the same, calm and level. It gave Alex the creeps. "Someone is pulling your strings. All I want is a bit of information and we can forget about all of his. An angelic little thing like you, I'm sure you were supposed to be nothing more than a diversion. You are expendable. Is your silence worth your pretty looks or your life?"

 _Don't rise to the bait_ , Alex reminded himself, even if the words settled darkly in his mind. If he reacted, Dr Three would dig in, and dig in hard. He had already learned that Alex was much more afraid of drowning than pain and had adjusted the sessions accordingly. Alex couldn't remember the last time he had been dry.

"... I don't know what you're talking about," he repeated in the same hoarse whisper.

This time he didn't get away with just one round of water. Yassen let him up just long enough to gasp a breath before his head was pushed underwater again. Yassen's grip kept him under for what seemed like forever before he relented again. Alex was still coughing water and trying to breathe when he was forced back underwater for the third time, and by the time he was finally released to collapse on the floor, he was openly sobbing in a mix of pain and shock and fear.

His lungs were burning. His throat was burning. His eyes were burning. He was still seeing black spots in his vision.

He wondered if Dr Three had ever miscalculated and killed someone on accident.

" _Please_ ," he whispered. Speaking felt like swallowing razor blades. "I don't know what you're talking about. Please."

"I'm sure you don't," Dr Three agreed as Alex lay gasping for breath on the floor, "but it's good business to make sure, wouldn't you say? Remember that there is nothing they can do to you that will be greater than the torment of failure."

A small syringe appeared at the edge of his vision.

"I'm going to send you back to your cell to think about my offer," Dr Three said. "Consider this little gift an incentive to cooperate. You will be in a remarkable amount of pain, Alex. Enough that it has driven grown men to suicide. If you decide to indulge my questions, I have the antidote right with me. I do recommend you decide fast. Before you lose your voice from screaming."

Yassen's grip kept him still as the clear liquid was injected, but Alex suspected they all knew it was for show. He didn't have the strength to fight, much less against Yassen.

The sharp stinging started in his arm soon after and spread fast. It went from pin and needles to the feeling of glass shards under his skin and on to acid in raw wounds at a steady, merciless pace. He was screaming long before it had ever finished running its course through his body. Screaming and crying, in a jumble of English, Russian, Spanish, French, but he didn't give up any information, and right there, right then, that was everything that mattered, even if he was entirely too far gone to remember why.

* * *

Alex's prolonged RTI course finished the day of his fifteenth birthday, which was all the celebration he wanted.

Alex Rider would have nightmares about drowning for the rest of his life.

* * *

Alex spent three days in the clinic before Dr Javadi deemed him fit for training again. He spent most of the first two days asleep. A common amount of time, Ross had assured him when he visited briefly the second day with a change of clothes. It would take another two weeks to get back into the same shape he had been before. The scars where the handcuffs had been would linger for months.

He knew he should have felt relieved that it was over, that this was it, but he knew perfectly well what came after. Compared to graduation, those weeks of endless waiting seemed a lot less bad.

Alex did get some sympathetic looks when he reappeared the fourth day for the morning run. Everyone on Malagosto went through RTI training, so everyone knew perfectly well what it meant when someone vanished for several weeks and returned somewhat worse for wear. Dr Three had been no kinder or harsher on Alex for his age or history with SCORPIA. The fact that Alex had returned at all told everyone what they needed to know. Students had vanished without a trace before if they couldn't handle the pressure.

Yassen left once Alex was cleared for lessons again, though with the promise it would be a short mission. Another reminder that graduation was looming. Yassen wanted to be nearby for that as well.

Alex had caught up on the outside world during his time in the clinic. Part of him wished he hadn't. The main story across most of the board was a plague in Kenya that had spread into Uganda and Tanzania as well, and which had quickly been upgrades from 'natural' to 'deliberate'. A good deal of focus, not all of it good, had started to gather around the charity First Aid. A number of questions were also asked about its founder, Desmond McCain, but the man had died when his plane crashed mere days before the plague appeared.

Alex wondered if the man had faked his death or been the victim of an assassin. He had long since stopped believing in accidents, and certainly accidents as convenient as that. At least the plague hadn't been SCORPIA's doing for once.

Life at Malagosto had continued, too. Klaus had graduated sometime during Alex's two weeks in RTI and had left immediate for his first job. For a little while there were just the nine of them left. Then Malagosto got two new students near the end of February, and for the first time Alex was on the other side of things as one of the students in class as the two potential new SCORPIA recruits got the tour.

They vanished into Dr Javadi's clinic for the afternoon but reappeared again in time for dinner. Both seemed a little overwhelmed though they did a very good job of not allowing it to show. Alex would have expected nothing else.

They also both seemed a little startled to see a teenager at Malagosto. The second-youngest currently at the school was Samuel, an Australian around twenty. Malagosto didn't discriminate based on age, but Alex figured that it wasn't often that they had students as young as him, or as young as Yassen and Nile had been when they went through training.

As it turned out, Greer and Osborn – it could have been their real names, but Alex doubted it - were both in their mid-twenties, former Delta Force, and team mates until they had jumped ship together in favour of a presumably better offer. Alex could see why SCORPIA would want someone with that sort of training on their payroll.

They also both slipped easily into the usual conversation over food, though obviously a little cautious about saying the wrong thing. The hesitation vanished as dinner went on. They were both reasonably talkative, too, which couldn't be said for everyone. A couple of the students rarely ever spoke at all and kept to their own company. Most were social people, if intensely private.

Right around dessert Greer voiced the question Alex knew they had both been wondering about.

"How old are you?" the man asked bluntly. He reminded Alex a little of SAS soldiers he had known. Short hair, muscular, gruff.

"I turned fifteen two weeks ago," Alex replied. There was no pride or apology in his voice, just simple acknowledgement of the truth. His age wasn't exactly a secret. It wasn't anything they couldn't find out through INTERPOL themselves.

He looked his age, too, and he knew it. It was one of his biggest advantages until he grew up enough to gain his adult height and strength.

They both seemed to have expected an answer roughly around that age, but they still looked a little unsure of how to approach it from there.

"They always say it's never too early to think about your future career. It's pretty hard to get into a good university these days," Alex added helpfully. "SCORPIA runs an excellent school, and all the best universities want perfect grades. Languages -"

"'I have a gun' and 'I will shoot you in the face' in eight different dialects of Arabic," Samuel injected.

"- Horticulture -"

"Poisons," Samuel again.

"- Crafts and arts -"

"Explosive devices, forgeries, and covert ops," Collins joined in.

"- and social studies."

"How to kill, threaten, blackmail, torture, and interrogate people in new and interesting ways," Samuel finished. "I certainly plan to put it in my own university application. Maybe it'll count as volunteer work, too."

"We'll be a shoe-in for Oxford, the two of us," Alex agreed cheerfully.

"If they know what's good for them, anyway." Collins smiled. He seemed to have taken a liking to Alex. "He forgot to mention he's Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice and the son of a legendary SCORPIA agent in his own right. About ready for graduation, too."

Graduation. The word settled heavily in Alex's chest. He ignored it. Worrying would do nothing to help.

"Graduation?" Greer unknowingly echoed Alex's thoughts.

"First assignment. If you complete it, you earned yourself a place near the top of SCORPIA's hierarchy. If you fail, you're dead." Samuel's accent made the words sound almost cheerful. "Alex just passed resistance to interrogation. That's one of the last things they put you through. Another week or two, and he'll be off. They grow up so fast."

"You're not that far behind," Alex objected. "None of you are. I just did most of the training elsewhere."

Samuel shrugged. "A couple of months for me, probably. About the same for you?" he asked Collins.

The man shook his head. "I started from scratch on languages. Probably closer to three. Salim and Lucille should be up for RTI any day now."

Alex didn't know Salim very well – the man was less than social on most days – but he still felt bad for both of them. Collins was probably right, though. They weren't that far behind Alex. They might even be put through it at the same time, though he doubted they would even know until afterwards. Alex remembered long periods left alone to his own thoughts and general misery. Dr Three could easily have had another victim-slash-student and Alex wouldn't have known the difference.

The conversation drifted off into less serious topics, but the tightness in Alex's chest remained.

* * *

Yassen returned on the first of March. With him came the knowledge that time was up.

Alex went through his father's file and the recordings one last time before he destroyed them. They would be a liability outside of Malagosto. Better he did it himself than have it end up as a note in his own file somewhere. _Too many personal attachments. Careless with classified materials._

It wouldn't be long now. A few more days at the most, he suspected. In a week, he would be a murderer or dead. Quite possibly both.

Alex did not sleep well that night.

* * *

A/N 1: Thank you all so much for your suggestions for Alex's future codename! You found me one, so that is awesome :)

A/N 2: And with Desmond McCain's plague running its course in Africa, we're more or less in complete AU territory, since _Scorpia Rising_ would have happened very differently in this particular 'verse. A few more canon events will show up – for one, Kurst mentions several operations in _Scorpia Rising_ that went to their competitors – but other than that, it's pretty much uncharted territory complete with bumpy rides and Krakens. I tried to keep the RTI training within the canon-typical description of violence. Hopefully I managed to hit a balance between decently effective and not too much.

Next: Alex is out of time.


	8. The Hunter

A/N: The full graduation bit is around 8k long, so I split it into two. Second part just needs editing, so that should get posted around Monday/Tuesday-ish. By then, I should hopefully have a buffer of a couple of chapters again as well.

* * *

Three days into March, Alex was summoned to d'Arc's office.

"Your first assignment," the small man told him. He sounded genuinely proud. "Your graduation, Alex. You have done exceptionally well. A credit to your mentor and to this school."

Alex didn't feel like a credit to much of anything. He still played the role that was expected of him. "Yes, sir."

D'Arc looked at him thoughtfully and nodded like Alex had just passed some sort of judgement.

"Yes. An exceptional student, indeed. Dress for polite company, Alex. A car will pick you up at four."

An hour to pack and prepare, then. Alex managed in forty minutes. A shower, dark trousers, white shirt, and two full suitcases. Yassen appeared in the doorway as Alex packed away the last few things.

"Your first assignment." It was not a question. Alex wouldn't have been surprised if Yassen had known in advance. There was something in the man's voice Alex couldn't quite pinpoint, somewhere between pride and concern.

Yassen handed him a small phone. It fit easily into Alex's pocket. "You will be on your own, but I would appreciate a sign of life when you have been given your instructions."

The cautious way he said it told Alex a lot more than he probably wanted to hear. The knowledge that despite his excellent reports and almost universal praise from his instructors, despite having passed every test they had given him so far, there was still the very real risk that whatever member of the board he was about to meet would decide he was too much of a liability.

Alex nodded. Swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat. "Any last minute advice?"

"Be respectful. Obey. Never argue. You are an assassin for SCORPIA now. You are their weapon. Your assignment is what you are given. Your will is what they pay it to be." Yassen paused for a moment. Alex wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been so used to him. "Do not hesitate. Do not call the target by name. Those were my mistakes. They will not be as forgiving if you fail. They wished to make an example of you after Sayle. For your survival and for Hunter's betrayal, you will be held to far higher standards than the other students here."

That sounded just lovely. It was no surprise, but the words still made it uncomfortably real. He was reminded briefly of MI6 as well. Blunt would have loved that. The perfect agent. At least SCORPIA would actually pay him, though Alex wasn't sure if that made it any better or just worse.

He wondered if he should carry a weapon. He doubted it would make any difference either way. They were unlikely to let him keep it.

"Do you know who I'm supposed to meet? D'Arc didn't mention."

The slight shake of Yassen's head was all the answer he needed. He was going in blind, then. Probably another test. Alex was used to them by now.

"It'll be a surprise, then. Lucky me."

Alex grabbed one suitcase. Yassen took hold of the other before Alex could. He didn't speak but they both knew Alex would appreciate the company while they waited for the driver.

Alex was picked up by a white Mercedes at exactly four. It could have been the same car that drove him there in the first place, he had no idea, but the driver was different. His suitcases vanished into the trunk without a word being spoken.

Yassen nodded once at him, all the greeting they could afford now. Then Alex slipped into the car and the sounds of Malagosto were abruptly cut off when the door closed behind him.

They left the school behind, passed by Abu Dhabi, and continued on to Dubai. The driver never spoke and Alex made no attempt at conversation. His mind was a roiling mess of dread and grim determination, and anxiety had seized his chest in a tight grip.

The drive was simultaneously too long and entirely too short. When they went from bright sunlight and endless construction sites into a deep car park underneath a skyscraper, Alex was reminded of ancient mythology and descents into the underworld. He couldn't remember those stories ever ending well for anyone.

Alex was greeted by a uniformed guard once they stopped. The car didn't leave but vanished deeper into the car park. He wondered if that was a good sign.

"Mr Rider. Your luggage will be taken care of."

The guard was all efficient politeness. Alex followed him into the elevator and watched the number of the floor count upwards. When they finally stopped, they had to be pretty close to the top.

Two new guards met them just outside and gestured for Alex to follow them. The brief walk to an office door – the only door he had seen so far on that floor – showed him he was right. They had to be near the top, if not the actual penthouse. The wide windows offered a panorama view of the city as well as the sea to one side and the desert to the other. Any other time, Alex might actually have appreciated that.

The man behind the expansive desk stood when they arrived, though Alex knew it had nothing to do with respect and everything to do with intimidation. Yassen's SCORPIA files had been thorough. The very first part he had covered had been the board behind it all.

Zeljan Kurst had a terrifying presence. Alex had faced down an insane billionaire and a deranged genius before, but Kurst was in a league of his own for how average he looked. A massive, broad-shouldered, expressionless man that didn't look at all intelligent ... he could have been anyone and he wouldn't have warranted a second look.

The man was also the current acting head of SCORPIA, malicious, ruthless, and highly intelligent, and right now he held Alex's life in his hands.

The two guards stepped outside again. The door closed silently behind them. Alex was entirely alone with Kurst, though he was sure there were all sorts of nasty little surprises in the room in case of trouble – not counting the man himself.

Alex stood at ease, slipping into lessons from Brecon Beacons as he stared straight ahead and waited for Kurst to break the silence. It was a test, he was sure – of his age and obedience both. What good was a teenage operative that acted his age at the wrong times?

When the man finally spoke, it was in accented Russian. Alex was sure it was deliberate. Probably a reminder of his place. He belonged to SCORPIA now, not MI6, and if his superior didn't want to speak in English, any lack of comprehension was Alex's own problem.

"Alexander John Rider. Former MI6. Son of John Rider, double agent and MI6 as well."

"Yes, sir." Alex answered in the same language and kept his voice perfectly even.

"You interfered with Stormbreaker. You cost us a significant amount of money. Sayle paid us well for that operation."

"Yes, sir."

"Cossack's orders were to kill you. The board wasn't too pleased with him when you remained alive."

"Can't imagine why, sir," Alex said before his brain could catch up with his mouth. Yassen would be severely displeased if he found out. Assuming Alex would be alive to tell him, anyway.

Kurst smiled thinly. His face didn't look like it was an expression it was all that used to.

"Yes. I've heard stories of your tendency to mouth off to your superiors. Ross was quite impressed with your obedience when he tested you, but I see Cossack hasn't quite managed to beat it out of you. I will permit it given the cover of your age. Test me, and you will not speak again."

Alex wasn't sure if that referred to losing his life or just his tongue, and he really didn't want to find out.

"Yes, sir."

Kurst nodded once. He didn't speak but walked slowly around Alex, judging him like he was a particularly substandard show pony. Alex didn't move but kept his eyes locked on a spot on the broad window straight ahead. Crude but effective intimidation tactics. They worked really well for someone as large and bulky as Kurst.

"Cossack trained you well," Kurst conceded when he stopped in front of Alex again. "I had my doubts, but he argued well for you and he has given us many years of excellent service. I was willing to take the chance. I could always kill you myself if you became a problem."

It was not a question. Alex stayed silent.

"Your records at Malagosto speak for themselves. Top of your class, expert marksman, hard worker, remarkable potential. Reluctant to kill, however. Adamant that you won't kill children. Hardly desirable qualities in an assassin."

Alex's heart rate kicked up a notch but he didn't allow his nerves to show. He knew without any need to be told that if he flinched, he was dead.

"No, sir."

"No explanations? No attempt to justify yourself?"

"No, sir," Alex said, defiance in his voice that he couldn't quite hide.

"Backbone, at least." Alex could pick up nothing in Kurst's voice, good or bad. "Hunter had the same."

Alex didn't take the bait – and if that wasn't a blatant invitation to ask and probably fail some sort of test, he didn't know what was – and after long seconds, Kurst nodded. Grudgingly.

"Cossack has expressed a preference for keeping you as his partner. Do well on this mission and the board will be inclined to agree with that request. SCORPIA has had good experiences with a Rider-Gregorovich partnership before. Your father was a double agent, true, but he was a skilled assassin and even better instructor. Cossack turned out exceptionally well." Another thin, unpleasant smile. "I can't blame MI6 for a desire to have those skills for themselves. They have qualms about training decent assassins on their own. They seem to train them mostly on accident – or, in Hunter's case, leave the work to us."

Another obvious trap. Alex stayed silent.

 _Be respectful. Obey. Never argue._

Alex had a whole new appreciation for Yassen's last minute advice.

Kurst pulled a few sheets of paper and a pen from a drawer and placed them on the desk. Alex made a point not to try and read anything on it.

"You have read the contract Ross left for you." It was not a question. "Sign."

Alex crossed the rest of the room to the desk. The contract rested heavily on the dark wood. The paper looked expensive; the pen even more so.

Alex breathed slow and steady as he picked up the heavy pen. He made a point to read through the wording again, fast but thorough. It wasn't like he could drag them to court over something, but he wanted to make sure it was the same contract he had already read through once. Thoroughness was a virtue in an assassin, wasn't it?

Kurst didn't speak. The silence hung uncomfortably in the room.

Last sentence finished, Alex signed swiftly and placed the pen carefully by the side. He stepped back and returned to his previous stance, and Kurst slid the contract into a folder.

"The formalities are in order, then. Remove your shirt."

Alex hesitated for only a second before he complied. The room was slightly chilly, the air condition set just a little too low.

Kurst opened a box on the edge of the desk and removed a hypodermic needle from a sterile case. Alex didn't move when the man walked behind him and he felt the cold wetness of an alcohol wipe between his shoulders. It smelled like hospital visits.

A sharp sting right beneath his neck and it was over. Kurst dropped the needle back in the box and gestured for Alex to get dressed again. There was a slight discomfort when Alex complied but he suspected that was the irritation of the needle more than anything.

"A tracker," Kurst said, less explanation and more statement of fact. "It will be removed at the end of your exclusive contract with us. It won't transmit your location, but it will record your every move for us. I'm sure I don't need to tell you the consequences should we find it tampered with or removed prematurely. Given your family history, we wanted additional insurance. You are an investment. We want a successful operative. But don't take us for fools."

His words sounded almost reasonable but his expression was every inch the head of the highly-successful terrorist organisation that he currently was. They didn't have enough doubts to have him killed on the spot, but it had been close enough. A lot closer than Alex was comfortable with.

There was only one safe answer he could give.

"Yes, sir."

Kurst nodded. Looked pensive. It looked almost wrong on his face, like it was another expression it wasn't familiar with. "Your military gave you the codename Cub and meant it as a mockery. Utter fools. Your age is a priceless asset. They were given a gift, a talented operative trained from birth, and they squandered it. You will be Orion, the hunter. Skilled beyond all mortals. Killed by a monstrous scorpion sent by the gods when he rose above his station. Never forget where you came from, Alex Rider."

Part praise, part order, part threat. Alex was used to that.

Two envelopes appeared from a drawer and were handed to Alex. One was sealed with black tape marked with a scorpion. He made no move to open them.

"One contains the details of your bank account and other necessities. The other is your assignment. It's a bit of a rush, but I'm sure you will prove up to the challenge."

 _Or else,_ Alex understood plainly.

"You will spend the night at a hotel and leave tomorrow. You have until then to memorise your cover. The assignment must be completed two days from now. You will take part in a larger operation immediately after, and we don't need an untested weapon for that. Any questions?"

"No, sir."

Kurst didn't answer but a small gesture saw one of the guards open the door. Alex took his cue to leave. He was escorted to the car park by the same guard that had led him most of the way up to begin with, and the white Mercedes was already waiting when they arrived.

The driver didn't ask for a destination but merely started the moment Alex had settled down. He probably had his own orders, too.

Alex waited until they were clear of the skyscraper to text Yassen.

 _Still alive. Got my assignment._

The almost instant response he got told him that his mentor had been legitimately worried.

 _Well done._

Alex smiled. The sheer elation of surviving overshadowed the reality of his situation for at least a little while. He didn't mention the tracker. He would do that in person when they met again. It was not the sort of thing he wanted in writing.

Alex spent that night in a hotel room in Dubai, just himself and a file with his cover story and the muted sounds of the city outside.

His own room in Malagosto had been calm and quiet when he needed it, but it had never felt as lonely as the hotel room did. Classy, comfortable, obvious expensive, and it made Alex feel completely isolated from the world outside. A prison in the middle of the bright lights and thriving, growing world of Dubai right outside his window.

The reality of his new life had come crashing down the moment he opened the two envelopes. The target wasn't there – a contact would give him that file when he arrived – but there was an entire life to memorise. A brand new person to become for the next few days.

A suitcase had been waiting for him with some of his clothes. Enough to last for five days. He didn't know where the rest had gone, and he supposed it didn't matter right now. His laptop was missing, too, not that he was surprised.

There were two plane tickets for him – Dubai to Zurich, and Zurich to Nice – as well as a credit card, some cash, and any documents he might need. There was hair dye - brown, almost black - and contacts that would turn his eyes several shades darker. Along with his longer hair and the tan he had managed to get at Malagosto, it worked well to make him look like a very different person.

He was Alexandre Moreau this time, fourteen years old and the only child of divorced parents with too much money who couldn't even stand to be in the same country. He had just been to visit his father in Switzerland to meet his potential new step-mother, and now he was on his way home to France. He would be picked up by a house-keeper at the airport since his mother would be too busy, again, to be there for her son.

The cover story was different enough from Alex Rider to avoid any obvious connections but close enough that something about it still hurt in a way Alex thought he had managed to get over by now. He would bet it was less about an easy-to-remember cover on SCORPIA's part and more a deliberate test of him. The place fit, too. Alex had been in France often enough with Ian, and in Nice on two occasions. If things had been different, he might have grown up there.

When he had read through everything twice, he got up and stretched. He needed the break to let the information settle.

The muscles in his upper back were still a little sore from the tracker that Alex refused to think about. Now, in the stillness of his hotel room, it was a lot harder to forget about it.

Decision made, Alex headed to the bathroom where the light was best. He needed to dye his hair, anyway, and while he didn't want to think about the tracker, he wanted to think about murder even less. Any distraction was better than thoughts of his assignment.

Alex took off his shirt and twisted to get a closer look at the injection site. It had bled a little and was tender to the touch, but otherwise it looked fine. It had been a large needle, but he healed well. A few more days and it would be impossible to tell.

Impossible to tell, of course, unless you had the proper tools. Somewhere underneath his skin, a small bit of technology recorded his every move, like he was a pet or a particularly valuable weapon.

He supposed both were true in their own way.

 _Property of SCORPIA._

He had agreed to it. He hadn't had much of a choice, sure, but he had still agreed to it. The tracker had been an unwelcome complication, but he wasn't even that surprised. It wasn't like Yassen had ever tried to hide the truth from him. SCORPIA's top operatives were lethal, capable people, exceptionally well paid and offered almost completely free hands to complete their assignments, but they were still SCORPIA's. In the end, they were still just the extended arm and will of the executive board, the experienced assassins all the more so. The difficult ones would have been disposed of already. The survivors were the skilled, intelligent ones that carried out their orders without question.

SCORPIA hadn't managed to become so powerful by being stupid. Some part of him had forgotten that. And with their experiences with his father … they had every reason to be distrustful.

Alex would just have to be all the more careful, then. Earn their trust slowly. No detours. No suspicious activities. Nothing that he couldn't defend based on the assignment. Eventually they would stop watching. He probably wouldn't be able to remove the thing without leaving a scar behind that would be noticed by anyone who checked, and he was sure the data was heavily protected against tampering, but eventually it wouldn't be worth watching him quite so closely.

Eventually.

He just had to survive for that long.

* * *

A/N 1: Massive thank you to juliasejanus for Orion as Alex's codename. SCORPIA appreciated the irony! There are several variations on Orion's death. Kurst chose the one that suited the message they wanted to send.

A/N 2: I figure the time spent at Malagosto varies wildly from student to student, what with everything SCORPIA wants them to learn. Klaus struck me as the type to want to learn everything he could, so he stayed for as long as they let him. Alex started pretty much from scratch, but he had excellent schooling and went through most of the training under Yassen and in the end only needed three months at the school to cover the things Yassen didn't. SCORPIA might send him back for more training later, but they want to make use of his age while they can.

Next: Graduation day


	9. Graduation

A/N 1: It's technically not Monday, but I got a nice head start on the next bit of the fic, so yeah. The next chapter should be up in a week at the latest – I need to finish writing that story arc completely first, so it might actually be a week this time.

A/N 2: Another warning for grim subject matters, though I tried to keep it canon-level.

* * *

Morning found Alex Rider on a flight to Zurich. Both tickets were business class. Alexandre's parents didn't have much time for their son, but they did put a lot of effort into out-spending the other.

He had switched from English to French that morning, even in his own mind. He couldn't afford to slip up.

He spent two hours in Zurich and grabbed a bite to eat, then he was on another plane, this time to Nice. Just over an hour later they touched down again, and Alex followed the rest of the crowd through the airport. He had been through Nice Côte d'Azur once before that he recalled, but the memory was hazy at best. It was easier to follow the signs and the rest of the passengers.

Alex got his luggage without any issue, and the sole customs officer didn't even look at him. Safely in the arrival hall, Alex stood aside and watched the crowd. Finally he spotted a vaguely familiar face a bit removed from the densest cluster of people.

Alex recognised the woman from the file. She wasn't that old, only in her late twenties, and looked like any other person. He wondered if she was another operative like himself, or one of SCORPIA's local contacts, though he wasn't about to ask. He crossed the room and addressed her in French, following the script he had been given to the letter.

"Élise. Mum couldn't come?"

The woman looked regretful. "I'm sorry, Alex. Something came up."

"Surprise." Alexandre was young enough to still be disappointed by that sort of thing.

The woman sighed. She managed the forced smile of someone dealing with a moody teenager. "How was your trip?"

"Delightful. My new stepmother is five years older than me. Can we go home now?"

Another sigh. "I'm sorry."

Alex shrugged. "Not your fault. You didn't propose to her."

She had followed her own script perfectly, every line exactly the one Alex had been told to expect. He followed her to the car and settled in the passenger seat in the front. Once they were clear of the airport and the ever-present cameras, the woman – Alex doubted her real name had anything to do with 'Élise' – handed him a large, sealed envelope from the glove box.

"Your target. You will stay in a safe-house, supposedly your home. There will be a weapon available. Your flight is tomorrow evening. The file has instructions about the time and place of the assignment. A contact will meet you in the safe-house afterwards. There are instructions for that as well. Any questions?"

Alex didn't open the envelope. That could wait until he was alone. "No."

Neither spoke for the rest of the drive. The woman turned on the radio, and Alex listened to the low murmur of music interspaced with occasional news in French.

The safe-house was an apartment in the heart of Nice. The woman followed Alex to the door for appearance's sake and gave him the key.

"Tomorrow evening," she repeated. If she was bothered by his age, it didn't show.

Alex just nodded. She didn't look back as she turned and left, and just like that Alex was on his own again.

The envelope in his hand felt like lead. Alex put it on the bed and checked the apartment thoroughly before he picked it back up.

If he went through with it, there would be no way back. If he didn't, if he failed or refused, he would be killed. Dead or a murderer. Could MI6 really have been that much worse, if he had stayed?

Alex's hands were shaking. He clenched his fists and forced himself to calm down before he opened the envelope and slid out the papers.

The top sheet was a name and employer.

 **Laurence Wright. MI6.**

The photo right below was a man in his forties, dark-haired with a few specks of grey. He wore a suit, Alex noted, a perfectly anonymous one. His face was utterly forgettable, too, but his eyes were warm.

 _Do not call the target by name._

Names made the target human, just like warm eyes did, and Alex flipped the sheet over to read the next page. He would need to memorise the target's appearance well enough to find him but … later. He would read the rest first. It wasn't avoidance that way, was it?

A long, detailed file later, and his hands were shaking again. He did nothing to stop it this time. Laurence Wright's cover was a banker, he had been one of MI6's agents for sixteen years, and he was heavily involved in an operation that dealt with high-level corruption within several major banks. The file didn't specify who had wanted him dead enough to pay for it, nor why. Alex wasn't surprised. SCORPIA wouldn't consider it his business. He was just supposed to get it done.

Laurence Wright could have been Ian Rider, and Alex didn't doubt SCORPIA had done that on purpose. Everything about the assignment had just enough echoes of Alex's own past that it couldn't be dismissed as a coincidence.

 _Do not call the target by name._

Alex took a deep breath. Put the file down. Got dressed in a light jacket and put his shoes back on. He only had a few hours to get an idea of the area. There was little for him to plan himself. There were instructions for the time and place already.

Alex wasn't stupid. It wasn't a test of his ability to plan a murder, because they knew perfectly well that Yassen and Malagosto had taught him that. It was an assignment meant solely to test if he could pull the trigger, and they had made sure to stack the deck against him.

Everything would be lined up for him. If he failed, if he didn't take the shot, he would have no excuse. None.

Good agents, like good assassins, had no habits, nothing that could be used against them, but the target had to fit in like any other banker and he hadn't done proper field work in a while. He liked to vary his routes to work, but when his colleagues headed out for lunch right around noon, he always went with them.

There would be a perfect opportunity right outside the bank he worked at.

The safe-house wasn't far from the spot the file had specified, but it was still a good walk. Alex didn't mind. He needed to stretch his legs after two flights. When he arrived, the sun was setting and most workers had gone home for the day. The weather was mild, though, and the streets weren't overly crowded, and the place was a mix of white and sand-coloured multi-storey houses with the occasional plants for decoration.

Alex didn't remember this particular part of Nice, but the feel of the place was the same. Another reminder of Ian Rider.

He took his time to get a good view of the surroundings before he headed to the building they had chosen. He felt the first bit of nausea set in when he saw it. A middle school with rooftop access. He would be just young enough not to look out of place. He had known what the place would be, but it was different to see it in person.

The school was empty, at least. In the morning it wouldn't be. It hadn't been locked down for the night yet, and Alex got in easily. He had to pick a few locks to get to the roof, but he managed to avoid any people.

From his vantage point, there was a beautiful view over the sea. Alex couldn't find it in him to appreciate it. In the other direction, away from the sea, was a clear view to the street his target would be at. A narrow shot, but it wasn't far. Not far at all.

He left again the same way he arrived, still careful to avoid anyone.

He had a nagging, uncomfortable feeling of being watched. He couldn't pinpoint it, nor did he spot anyone, but he still took a wide detour back and did everything that should have seen any tail lose track of him.

The feeling still lingered.

Alex stopped by a small grocery store to pick up enough to last him until the morning. He didn't feel hungry, but he knew he should eat.

He went through the file twice more that evening, just in case. He memorised the photo and tried to pretend it wasn't a living human being. When he went to bed, the apartment was silent and empty, and Alex expected someone to appear from every shadow in the room.

He slept with a small light on that night. Just enough to keep the darkness at bay. He was grateful for it when he woke up repeatedly with nightmares of Ian Rider and guns and SCORPIA ordering him to kill Jack and Tom and Yassen, and he could do nothing to stop it -

Alex gave up on sleep around five that morning.

He watched the sunrise. Watched the news. Watched the weather forecast. Packed his suitcase, and had a bowl of cereal, and hated himself for the normality of it all.

He stared at the phone from Yassen and wanted to text him and knew he shouldn't. He put it away again before he got tempted. Even getting chewed out for taking stupid risks would be an improvement on the loneliness.

Alex was familiar with the sniper rifle they had provided for him, but he still disassembled and cleaned it thoroughly before he put the whole thing back together. His weapon was ready, at least.

There had been a backpack in one of the closets, the perfectly normal sort for school. With the file and the location in mind, Alex knew why.

The rifle fit neatly into the bag when folded. Alex added some extra clothes for cover and to give it a bit of bulk.

He was at the school at eleven, well before lunch started. He couldn't risk being there too early and get spotted, but at least no one else was likely to be up there.

It was slightly harder to get to the roof unnoticed on a school day, but he still managed. The weather was dry and mild, and Alex settled in the shadows where he would have a good view of things without the risk of discovery.

At eleven forty-five, Alex assembled the rifle with swift, practised motions that were more instinct than conscious thought. He settled by the edge, as hidden as he could be while still watching the area where the target would appear. His backpack doubled as support for the rifle and added to the bitter taste in his mouth.

His target was early. The small group of people appeared at eleven fifty-five.

The target – never by name, never mention his name, Alex repeated to himself – looked exactly like the photo. As Alex watched he laughed at something one of his companions said.

Bland suit, perfectly anonymous appearance. Just heavy enough clothes that it could hide some sort of light bulletproof vest. Possibly bulletproof fabric, too. His head was uncovered, though, and Alex knew with horrible certainty just what he would need to do, then.

His hands felt clammy where he touched the rifle. His heart rate sped up.

 _Don't hesitate._

Yassen had failed his first mission because he had hesitated. Because he had called the target by name.

And, Alex abruptly remembered, there had been another assassin around to kill Yassen's target when he had failed his first assignment. He was suddenly reminded of the unnerving sense of being watched.

Someone else was there. Someone else was watching him. Someone else had a weapon aimed at the man. The target was dead no matter what. The only question was whether Alex would die as well.

 _Don't hesitate._

Alex watched the target through the scope. The motions of people, the silent words as they spoke and their lips moved. The light shift of hair and clothes in the breeze. They would turn around a corner soon. He was almost out of time. He took a breath, slow and steady. Stilled.

Alex pulled the trigger.

It was instant, at least. A clean head-shot. Yassen had drilled him too much in target practice to allow anything else. Horror settled in him, horror and immediate, terribly regret, but he couldn't afford to deal with it now.

He had known the target was dead the moment the bullet had hit. Had seen the results of a sniper bullet to the head in stark, grim details for a second before he jerked away and closed his eyes. He had seen enough. The body and the expanding pool of blood on the pavement. The panic of the people around.

Alex felt sick.

Hands trembling, he packed the rifle away on autopilot and took off as fast as he could. He wouldn't have long before someone pinpointed the direction of the bullet.

Lunch break was only a few minutes away. He couldn't afford to linger, not when he might draw attention by being an unknown person in the school.

He moved faster than he probably should, but there were screams outside, and he knew he would blend in with the crowds. Just one more horrified onlooker. He was just a kid, after all. No one would even suspect him.

He was on the verge of a breakdown and he knew it, and he couldn't afford it. Not now. Not until he was clear of it all.

The first sound of sirens appeared. The backpack felt impossibly heavy.

Alex took a large detour to the safe-house to dispose of the rifle in the Var. It wasn't a deep river, but it would do the trick. If they found the rifle, any evidence would long since be gone.

He kept a tight grip on himself the entire way. He didn't allow himself to remember the man. He didn't allow himself to remember the gut-wrenching guilt or the surge of nausea at what he had just done.

His hands still trembled. He shoved them in his pocket to keep them hidden. He expected someone to stop him, someone to know what he had done, but no one did. He got to the safe-house without ever speaking with another person, without being followed, without so much as a suspicious look, and only after he locked the door behind him and checked the place thoroughly did he allow himself to feel everything he had wrapped up so tightly.

The nausea returned with a vengeance, and Alex collapsed on his knees in front of the toilet and threw up until only bile was left. He was crying, and he was trembling, and he was alone.

He was fifteen years old and he had killed a man in cold blood. Deliberately murdered him for money and the chance to live a little longer at SCORPIA's whim.

Alex curled up in the corner of the bathroom and didn't bother to keep the tears at bay. He didn't care if someone was watching on a camera somewhere. He didn't care if someone might be listening. He let the guilt and horror take over, tears turning into deep sobs, and he cried until he was exhausted and numb and he had nothing left to give.

When he finally got up, his face was a mess of dried tears and snot, but his eyes had mostly stopped burning. He saw his own reflection in a glimpse and looked away before he could meet his own eyes.

He needed a shower. He needed to feel clean.

Alex turned the water up as high and hot as he could stand and scrubbed until his skin was stinging and his fingertips wrinkled. Only then did he turn off the water and got out.

The bathroom was hot and humid, and the mirror was completely fogged up. Alex packed his used clothes in a bag and slipped back into the living room to get dressed again.

Three in the afternoon. The contact would be there soon.

Dressed and clean, in the end Alex just sat on the bed as he waited. He felt tired and numb. He turned on the TV and wasn't surprised to find the hit already breaking news. He half-heartedly kept track of any updates. Most information about the investigation would probably be kept from the press, but sometimes details slipped through. He wondered if he would even know they were on to him until they kicked in the front door.

At three-thirty on the dot, someone knocked on the door. Low and steady, three times, followed by another three.

Alex got up to open and found himself face to face with a very familiar man.

Yassen Gregorovich raised an eyebrow in a silent question. Alex stepped aside to let him in and closed the door behind them, motions on automatic. His hair was dyed, Alex noted, grasping for something else to focus on. The stubble he had sported when he had returned to Malagosto was quickly growing into a short, well-trimmed beard.

Yassen bore the scrutiny with no sign at all that it bothered him.

"Alex," he greeted in English. "You did very well."

Any other time, Alex would have appreciated the praise, rare as it was. But not now, not when several pieces slit into place.

"You're my contact. You wrote the file." Cold understanding crept past the numb horror of the day. "I knew someone was there. You were supposed to kill the target if I couldn't and … handle any consequences."

They had sent Yassen to kill him. He distantly wondered if they had expected him to fail and his success had been a surprise.

Yassen didn't speak. They both knew the answer.

"Would you even have told me before you pulled the trigger?" Alex demanded, morbidly curious and unable to stop himself.

"Would you have wanted me to?" Yassen asked in turn.

No. Yes. He wasn't sure. It would have been easy if he had never known. A bullet through the head would have killed him instantly, just like it had killed the target. Killed Laurence Wright. No pain, just alive one moment and dead the next. If he had known it was coming …

Alex settled for silence. Yassen knew him well enough to hazard a good guess as to the direction of his thoughts, anyway.

Alex swallowed. There were a hundred things he wanted to say and no words to express them with.

"I hate you," he whispered, the only words he could find. His voice was trembling and he couldn't stop it.

"But you are alive to do so." Yassen's voice was soft and regretful both, and something in Alex broke.

The numbness crumbled and he was sobbing again as he came utterly apart. He felt more than heard Yassen move, felt a surprisingly gentle hand brush his hair, and Alex didn't even consider his actions. He just clung to Yassen, the only real human contact he'd had in days, and he cried until he had no more tears left and the numbness returned.

Yassen didn't move but merely held him and let Alex work through the storm of emotions. When Alex finally stepped back and dried his eyes, Yassen's shirt had a wet patch by the shoulder from the tears.

Alex looked away, suddenly awkward. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

"It will dry," Yassen answered, deliberately missing the point.

Alex wiped the last, lingering tears from his face. "He was MI6. His cover was a banker," he said. His voice still sounded a little rough.

It felt like he had pulled the trigger on Ian Rider. Alex didn't need to say it. Yassen understood the unspoken words just fine. He had written the details in the file himself. He knew exactly how many similarities Ian Rider and Laurence Wright had.

"They're going to make sure MI6 knows I did it," Alex stated more than asked. "Burn any bridges I might have left. Make it clear I belong to them now."

"Likely," Yassen agreed. "Your defection will be an embarrassment to MI6, all the more so because SCORPIA managed to gain what they didn't. Your willing cooperation."

"They put a tracker in me, too." He was still a little sore where the needle had gone in.

"I was informed, yes."

Alex took a shuddering breath. "I killed him." The first time he had admitted it out loud. Outside of the privacy of his own mind. It made it horribly real.

"You did your job. You did so exceptionally well for a first assignment. SCORPIA had its doubts about you, but you have put them to shame."

Alex knew it was meant as praise. He didn't feel proud. He didn't feel much of anything, too numb and exhausted to care, though he was sure it was only a temporary reprieve.

"What happens now?" he asked instead.

Yassen handed him an envelope from his own bag. "Your new assignment. We fly out tonight at seven. We have both been assigned to Operation Damocles in Singapore. I requested you as my permanent partner."

"Kurst mentioned that. He said the board would be inclined to agree if I did well enough."

Apparently he had. He wondered if someone had been watching it live. They had recorded one of his father's assassinations, after all. The thought made him feel a little sick.

"You passed. The request was approved. There will be others working on this operation, but you will primarily work with me."

"Just like that?"

"The life of a professional assassin is generally short and violent. The board has expressed an interest in hiring me as an instructor at Malagosto, should I grow too old or tire of field work. I believe they hope I will train up a successor in you. Someone acceptable to my standards."

 _And that's the sort of life you want for me?_ Alex didn't voice it out loud, though.

"You're not that old," he said instead.

"Not for some years yet," Yassen agreed. "I have enough to retire but little interest in doing so. In five years, it would be a serious consideration. In ten, should I live that long, it would be foolishness to continue. I would be well past my prime. My body would be slow and my reflexes dulled."

Alex tried to imagine Yassen as anything other than the lethal weapon that he was. The image didn't fit right. "That sounds harsh."

"A significant percentage of Malagosto's graduates do not survive their first year. That is not counting those that fail their first assignment. The first year is dangerous. Too much confidence from one successful kill and too little experience to temper it. I have had a long, successful career already. Far longer than most dare hope for."

And now it was Alex's career as well. Something must have shown in his expression, because Yassen sighed. "Clean up, Alex. Read the assignment. We leave in half an hour."

Alex just nodded, too drained to argue even if he had wanted to.

Somewhere in London, someone had probably alerted Blunt and Jones about the loss of an agent. Somewhere in Nice, there were police cars and closed roads and blood that had seeped into the pavement.

He should have stayed in London when he had the chance. He should have told Blunt to go to hell when he first showed up. He should have died on the plane with his parents, like he had been supposed to.

 _Property of SCORPIA._

He had made his choice. No way back.

* * *

A/N 3: Props to Lullyanne, who guessed what Alex's assignment would be! :)

A/N 4: Operation Damocles is the last bit of the story that has any semblance to canon-events, however vague. In _Scorpia Rising,_ Kurst mentions an operation in Singapore that went to a competitor instead (because Alex). I took the half-sentence and tried to give it a decent shot (and a name) based on that.

Next: Alex's first assignment as a SCORPIA operative


	10. Singapore

Thank you everyone for your reviews! I'm glad you still enjoy the fic, and thank you for reading :) As it looks right now, Operation Damocles will be around 18-20k words. The first chapter is double the usual size, since a lot of it is setting things up, and I didn't want to post 4k of just that.

A/N 1: It has been some years since I was last in Singapore, and that was only for a few days. If I get anything painfully wrong, I apologise in advance.

A/N 2: Zabuha: Ash is definitely still alive and doing his thing. They might meet in the future – Yassen isn't overjoyed at the idea, so it might be at SCORPIA's whim instead (One of the original plot ideas was actually that Yassen hunted Ash down to get Alex over his reluctance to kill, because he figured if there was anyone Alex would pull the trigger on without hesitation, it would be Ash).

* * *

It was Alex's first visit to Singapore. His initial impression past the impressive airport was of heat and humidity, even though it was well past six in the evening when they arrived. The former he was used to; the latter less so.

He was Alexander Owen now, the son of British expats that had recently moved to Singapore after years in Qatar. Yassen had become Daniel Owen, Alexander's father. A few more days of growing his beard, and he would look very little like himself. Joanne Owen, his mother for the next several weeks, was an Australian SCORPIA operative named Crux that was already stationed in Singapore.

The board member in charge of the operation was Brendan Chase, with Nile as his second in command. He had apparently wasted no time claiming Nile as his permanent second after Julia Rothman's death and Nile's full recovery from his injuries. Alex had wondered where Nile had gone off to but he hadn't asked. Now he knew.

The details of their assignment were sparse, bordering on vague, and anything related to their roles even more so. Extremely vague, in fact. Suspiciously so. It hadn't even mentioned Alex's role beyond _undercover work_ and had only mentioned the barest of details for Yassen.

It did mention that SCORPIA's contact for the operation had become a problem. Andrew Sullivan was the head of security for the Monetary Authority of Singapore and vital to the operation. If the key component of the whole operation had become a problem … if that wasn't bad news, Alex didn't know what was.

Still, the lack of details bothered him. He'd had enough surprises to last for a while. "You do know that even Blunt usually gave me better intel than this, right?"

"The vagueness is a sign of an operation that has not gone according to plan." Yassen didn't rise to the bait. "We were not supposed to have been assigned to this operation at all. The situation will already have deteriorated by the time we arrive. Our task will be to buy the necessary time needed to complete the objective. That means containment or clean-up. Likely both."

Alex could imagine quite vividly what SCORPIA meant by 'clean-up' and 'containment'. It was not a thought he wanted to linger on, and he had shut up again after that.

The flights, Nice to Zurich and on to Singapore, had been first class. The Owens were quite well to do, though Alex suspected part of it was a reward from Yassen as well. A reward and a chance to calm down in a bit of privacy before they landed in the heart of a major SCORPIA operation gone wrong.

Whatever the reason, Alex did feel a little better. Still numb, still emotionally exhausted, but he had managed to sleep for a few hours on the plane, and he hadn't been alone. That had helped.

Safely out of the airport, Yassen got them a cab. Alex didn't have the first clue where the address was in proximity to anything in Singapore, but the neighbourhood they finally arrived in was obviously upper class, and the Owens' house lived up to that.

It was quite large and undoubtedly expensive. Three floors, surrounded by a small, lush garden, and with two white Audis in the garage. The Owens, Alex noted, were very well to do indeed.

Yassen paid the driver. Alex got the luggage out and felt a little lost. Then the door opened and a woman appeared.

Alex recognised her from the briefing and forced himself to smile as he dragged their suitcases behind him to the entrance. "Mum!"

It felt weird, playing family like that, but unlike the two CIA agents he had met, this woman played along easily. Her responding smile looked real, and her hug when he reached her was every bit the mother with her teenage son.

"Alex! Welcome home! Did you have a nice trip?"

By that point Yassen had reached her, too, and wrapped an arm around her waist. "Nice enough," he answered and kissed her lightly. "Does your husband know you're kissing strangers?"

"Only the handsome ones."

It was downright bizarre to Alex to see Yassen act as a normal human. Logically he knew the man could, and he had seen proof of that before, but it was still strange and a little unsettling how easily he switched personalities.

Alex supposed it wasn't that different from what MI6 had expected of him, but still. _Yassen._

They carried the suitcases inside and locked the door behind them. Through the hallway, into the living room with light shades on some windows and a wall of green plants past the rest, and only then did they drop their act.

"Cossack, it's an honour to finally meet you," the woman greeted them. She had no noticeable accent. Outside, it had been closer to what Tom had always called Stuffy Old Snobbish, but now it was completely gone. She nodded at Alex. "You must be Orion."

She undoubtedly knew already from the briefing, but Alex nodded in return, anyway. "And you're Crux."

There were no comments about his age, no question about his skills. They were all three of them Malagosto graduates, which was all any of them needed to know. It felt uncomfortably nice to Alex that he didn't have to start from scratch by proving himself. The easy acceptance at the school obviously didn't end at graduation.

The respect and acknowledgement of his skills that no one else had ever seriously offered, and all he'd had to do was murder another human being.

Alex felt sick again. He forced himself to focus on Crux instead and think of something else.

She was slightly older than Yassen, though Alex doubted it was by much. She ran logistics more than assassinations, but since Yassen had also mentioned that she had been in charge of building up one of SCORPIA's more profitable new drug operations in the wake of Cray's shake-up of the drug cartels, Alex knew that didn't exactly mean harmless. It was a lucrative endeavour she had built up for SCORPIA, sure, but it was by no means a bloodless one.

"There will be a briefing here tomorrow at ten. Most things have been set up already. The rest of your luggage is already here. There are several guest rooms. If you don't like the one chosen for you, you're free to choose another one. Come downstairs when you're done, Alex. We need to do something about your looks."

Logistics, Alex reminded himself. It had to be second nature to her.

Alex let Yassen lead the way upstairs. As promised, the rest of Alex's belongings from Malagosto had already been delivered to one of the rooms. Yassen glanced at the two suitcases. "We will buy more for you tomorrow. We will be here for a while."

There were two new changes of clothes on the bed, somewhat more stuffy-looking than he was used to, and an expensive-looking watch. Alex had the strong suspicion that the gold plating on it was genuine. Alexander Owen seemed to like his style a little more formal and a lot more expensive than Alex preferred.

There was another bag with half a dozen different guns, a sniper rifle, and a pair of combat knives. Alex ignored that one.

Yassen's room was right next door. Both seemed perfectly acceptable to Alex. A thorough examination of both rooms later, and Yassen agreed as well. Alex had expected nothing else from a SCORPIA-run place, but it never hurt to be careful.

Yassen vanished into his own room for a shower, but Alex changed into some clean clothes and went back downstairs. He desperately needed a shower, too, but clean clothes would have to do for now.

Crux had brought out a chair to the middle of the kitchen. Alex sat without any need to be told. There was a comb and hair scissors on the table, too. He had a bad feeling about that.

"There are plenty of ways to look like someone else," Crux said after Alex had settled down. "Of course, you will need fake fingerprints for this operation and generally be careful about any prints you might leave. Someone might run them as a precaution. As for the rest … you had long hair and a casual style in Qatar. Now that you're here, as your mother it's my duty to insist you look a little more respectable. "

"That explains the clothes," Alex said dryly.

"Of course," she agreed easily. "It's any mother's right to make her teenage son terribly embarrassed by forcing him to dress like a productive member of society. Now, don't move or I might cut off too much."

An hour later, Alex's hair was shorter than it had ever been before, shorter and spikier. The piercing in his right ear had been joined by several more – teenage rebellion, Crux had said – and careful make-up had changed his features just enough to make him look slightly different. His new piercings throbbed a little. He made a note to sleep on his left side for a few nights.

It was almost a stranger staring at him in the mirror with only shades of the Alex he had been. It made it a little easier to look himself in the eyes.

"Alex Rider had fair hair just a little longer than most of his age. That's what people pay attention to at first sight. There is still a risk you might get spotted unless we actually use latex prosthetics, but as long as you change your body language and walk as well as your accent, it should work well enough. Prosthetics wouldn't last the whole day without touch-ups."

Crux looked thoughtfully at him. "You have a lovely, athletic build. When we have the time, we need to see if you can make a believable woman. It's an exceptionally useful disguise to be able to pull off."

Alex glanced in the mirror again at the near-stranger there. He tried to imagine himself with long hair and make-up like Crux. He might have objected a year ago. Now, the Malagosto-trained part of him recognised the value. "Would you help me? I've never learned to do make-up."

Crux's smile was fond. "I would be delighted. I'll teach you to apply this make-up on your own first. A few days and you should have it down all right. After that, we'll work on the rest. You should get some sleep, though. Teenagers are notorious for their need for it."

Especially after thirteen hours on a plane, even in first class, but that went without saying. Alex didn't even bother to argue. Shower and sleep. That sounded like heaven.

* * *

Alex woke up nine hours later, more rested than he had felt in weeks. It took a moment to remember it was Sunday. They had left France on Friday, and he had lost most of Saturday on the flight to Singapore.

For all that he had mentally been prepared for a night of blood and sniper rifles and the ghost of Ian Rider, he hadn't dreamt at all. Just slept and caught up on the rest his body had desperately needed. The numbness still lingered but at least the nausea was gone. His eyes looked different to him in the mirror when he forced himself to really take a look. Tired. Dead. He wondered if it was just his imagination. Yassen's eyes were cold and expressionless for the most part, too.

The bag of weapons rested on a chair where he had left it the night before. Alexander Owen was a normal schoolboy. He had no reason to carry a gun. Alex Rider, though …

Alex swallowed. Opened the bag and found the smallest gun in it. Easier to hide, and much less of a reminder than something larger would be. Alex Rider was a SCORPIA operative, and Yassen would be severely displeased if he had even the inkling that Alex went unarmed on an operation like that.

It was only a little past six when Alex slipped into the kitchen dressed in his work-out clothes, but Yassen was already up. The sound of a running shower told him Crux was awake, too.

"You look rested," Yassen commented. _You look better_ , Alex heard underneath the words.

"I am. I feel better."

Yassen nodded. "One of the rooms has been converted into a small gym. You get the choice between a treadmill and a run outside."

Stare at a wall in an air conditioned room, or take a look at their surroundings in hot, humid weather. Decision, decisions.

"The proper run," Alex decided. He had adapted to the Russian winter and to Malagosto. He would adapt to Singapore, too.

A quick breakfast and a long run later, and Alex felt more human than he had in a long time. The numbness had eased a little. The memories were still there the moment he thought about it for too long, but for now it was … easier. The operation gave him something else to focus on. It was undercover work – it felt like spy work and not like an assassin's job, and that helped, too.

It didn't change the fact that he was a killer. It didn't change the fact that he had fired that bullet. Not in self-defence or to stop a madman, but for money. Money and his own life.

The guilt settled heavily again and Alex forced it aside to focus on the present instead. There was still another hour of workout, because Yassen never, ever slacked on that sort of thing, and then another shower followed by a make-up lesson by Crux, clothes that made him look like a stuck-up twat, and a thin but annoying layer of latex to change his fingerprints. That would be his life for the next several weeks.

The briefing was at ten. His first real assignment after his graduation. His first SCORPIA operation on the other side of things.

Somewhere in London, someone could very well already have been briefed on the death of Laurence Wright at the hands of Alex Rider. He wondered if his INTERPOL listing would stay as 'wanted for terrorist activities' or if they would change it to 'murder'. It had still been murder for a terrorist organisation, after all.

Three hours later, watered, fed, cleaned, and a make-up lesson richer, Alex had settled down to reread the files they had been given.

The doorbell rang at ten on the dot. When Yassen opened the door, Alex got up but didn't recognise the man that stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Crux seemed to, though, which would have to be good enough. He was Caucasian, perhaps in his fifties, with mostly white hair and very little in the sense of receding hairline. The way he was dressed, he looked like a professor.

"Cossack, Crux, Orion," he greeted with a faint Australian accent, then smiled. "Congratulations on your first assignment, Alex. You managed beyond every expectation."

There was something about the words and the way he moved. Something familiar …

"Nile?"

The man smiled again, warm and genuine, and looked nothing at all like Nile. "Well done, Alex."

It had to be a latex mask of some sort, mask and gloves both because Alex didn't think make-up alone would be enough, but it looked utterly natural. He wondered how miserable it had to be to wear something like that in Singapore's heat and humidity.

They settled in the wide, soft couches, and Alex did his best not to stare at Nile. Was it a whole mask or carefully applied individual pieces? It would probably be bad manners to ask.

Nile gestured at his current disguise. "Mr Kelly here is an English teacher at a private school. Fortunately for SCORPIA, he has always felt his salary was a little low for someone of his well-educated background. He does minor things for us. English lessons for local agents that need it, references and such, and occasionally we pay him to stay indoor and out of sight for a day while we use his identity."

"What is the current situation?" Yassen asked. "The file was vague."

Nile looked faintly annoyed, though more at the situation than anything. "Already worse than it was when we wrote the original briefing. We have had to change our plans again. We have used Sullivan before with great success. This appears to have inflated his sense of self beyond anything useful to us. He has grown demanding and careless. Paranoid that someone will use his family against him. He wants protection for his family and himself now."

Paranoia was already unforgivable for a man in Sullivan's job. When he worked for SCORPIA on top of that, Alex didn't doubt his death had already been arranged for the moment his usefulness ran out.

"Will they, then?" Yassen sounded utterly indifferent.

"A man like that? He vastly overestimates his own importance. Still, SCORPIA will indulge him for now. If he hadn't insisted on acting out enough to draw the attention of the CIA and the Internal Security Department both, we would not have had to."

"A sensible precaution in any case," Yassen agreed. Alex let them talk. He noticed Crux did the same. He didn't blame her. Yassen was legendary in their circles, but Nile was well-known and respected, too. It wasn't often one got to see people like them interact. "An open invitation to place an operative with them, with his full cooperation."

"The original payment was money and new identities for himself, his wife, and son." Nile's expression hardened. "Now he demands more. It would be best if nothing happened to him or his family. He is still too valuable, but he is unreliable. Our orders are to keep him controlled."

It would be best if nothing happened _for now_ , Alex corrected to himself. Even if Sullivan's death hadn't already been decided on, 'unreliable' was all but a death sentence in SCORPIA terms, and never mind the man's attempted blackmail.

He did not sound like a pleasant man. More importantly to Alex, he didn't sound like a smart one, either, and that made him dangerous. Likely to do something rash.

"How about his family?" Alex spoke before he could stop himself.

Yassen sent him a pointed glance, just below a sharp reprimand in Yassen-terms. Nile just shook his head.

"SCORPIA is not unreasonable. We made an deal. His wife and son will be given their new identities and the money agreed upon. If they are sensible, they will cut their losses and never speak of it again. We prefer not to kill indiscriminately. It makes for bad business and makes others less likely to wish to deal with us in the future."

 _Would prefer not to._ Nile still wouldn't think twice about killing either of them if they became a problem, too.

"His wife does not work, and we have arranged to have their son pulled out of school for medical reasons. All records will show that Jacob Sullivan had emergency surgery for appendicitis two days ago and has been sent home to recover for three weeks with strict instructions to rest. His return to school depends on his health afterwards. His mother is known to be overprotective."

Alex wasn't surprised by that bit. The boy in the photos they had been given looked slightly younger than his thirteen years; cherubic but somewhat out of shape, and paler than Alex had expected. He didn't look like he got out much.

"Mrs Sullivan of course contacted Mr Kelly, a fellow expat, and asked if he could recommend a full-time tutor for those weeks. Someone a year or two older than Jacob, if possible. He's a shy, awkward boy and she hopes that maybe he will learn to be a little more social with a tutor around the same age instead of an adult."

"Me," Alex said.

"You," Nile agreed. "Of course, few teenagers could simply stay out of school for weeks to tutor someone, but Mr Kelly is an old acquaintance of Joanne's and knew she had just moved to Singapore – and more importantly, that her son is well ahead in all of his classes and used to tutor in Qatar as well. A few phone calls, and Alexander Owen waits three more weeks to start school, the two families get to cultivate some useful connections, and Mr Kelly is owed a valuable favour. Everyone wins."

Everyone except Jacob. Alex doubted the kid had the first idea what his father was involved with. He wondered if they had told him anything or just ordered him to stay indoor and pretend he just had surgery. Alex would have asked questions if Ian had tried the same. He wondered if Jacob had.

"It will draw too much attention if the Sullivans have obvious security. We have Sullivan himself under surveillance at his office. Alex stationed with his wife and child as their full-time tutor would ensure an extra degree of security and compliance. Incentive to play his role. As far as he is concerned, Alex is there as protection for his family. If he behaves, that is all he will ever know."

"I won't hurt him. Their son." Alex hadn't planned to say that, either, but he still met Nile's eyes without flinching, all stubborn defiance. Yassen would have his hide for it later, but Alex didn't care. It was well known by SCORPIA he wouldn't kill a child. It wouldn't be news to them, and Alex had to say it.

"You won't have to, Alex. For the harsh expectations, his father still dotes on him. His mother as well. Your presence would be enough. If he behaves, he will go on in blissful ignorance. If he doesn't, he will be reminded that his wife and son are within arm's reach of a SCORPIA assassin. All it would take would be a phone call. He will obey."

Nile sounded reassuring. Alex didn't buy it for a second, but there wasn't much he could do about it but hope they were right about Sullivan. And even if they didn't tell Alex to do it, he didn't doubt they could have another operative in the apartment within minutes.

His presence would be enough, Alex repeated to himself. Sure it would.

"We have a meeting with Mrs Sullivan in an hour, supposedly for an interview. You will be present during the weekdays for as long as Sullivan himself is gone. Weekends will be planned individually. We need to wire their apartment for full surveillance. You will be responsible for that. Sullivan regularly sweeps for such things, but he is an amateur playing with professionals. Get copies of anything you can as well. We also suspect the ISD, at least, to have an agent inside the apartment complex, and possibly the CIA, too. Find them. They don't have enough to bring him in for questioning yet. Ensure they never will. Cossack, you will hunt down any other problems. Our competitors have started to sniff around – Mr Chase wants them eradicated. We need two more weeks to complete this operation. Sullivan needs to remain alive and unhindered until then. If he is brought in for questioning, kill him. If they target his family, bring them to a safe-house, by force if necessary. We will salvage what we can afterwards. Any questions?"

That many dead or vanished people would bring unwanted attention, but probably not until SCORPIA was already gone again. It took time to deploy an agent, much less have them catch up on events on the ground enough to be useful.

Alex knew little about the rest of the operation but the name and the fact that the objective was some sort of confidential material. He knew better than to ask about anything further than that, too. Not this soon after his graduation. Not when SCORPIA still watched him carefully.

Yassen shook his head slightly. A second later, Alex did the same.

It felt like an MI6 briefing, except Nile was a little more detailed. With surveillance and enemy agents, it even felt like spy work. At least if he ignored the fact that he was there as a threat and that he had killed a man not two days prior.

Nile smiled. The mask moved perfectly with his expression. "Excellent. Come along, Alex. Let us go visit Mrs Sullivan."

* * *

The Sullivans lived on the eleventh floor of a tall apartment complex of the sort with security and staff available at all hours of the day.

Alex and Nile only got past security with an invitation and a call to the lady in question to make sure, and they were watched until they entered the lift. Nile preferred the stairs but Mr Kelly really didn't. The lift it was, then.

They were met at the door by Evelyn Sullivan. She was elegantly clad and looked significantly younger than the forty-six her file had put her at.

She also played her role to perfection and greeted them with a small smile, no sign at all that they were anything but perfectly harmless guests, one of them a potential employee.

"Mr Kelly, it's a pleasure to see you again. And you must be Alexander."

"Yes, Mrs Sullivan," Alex agreed easily. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

They followed her inside, and she gestured for them to take off their shoes as she opened the door to one of the offices. "Honey, the tutor is here."

"Potential tutor!" a male voice, presumable Andrew Sullivan, corrected from the office, but he still appeared a few moments later. He looked like his photo. A little more ruffled, though. A little more like he hadn't slept right in weeks. It wasn't a good sign to Alex, and it was the sort of thing sure to draw the wrong sort of attention.

 _Unreliable under pressure,_ Alex's SCORPIA-trained mind supplied in what sounded too much like Dr Three's voice. _A liability to be eliminated._

He ignored the thought as well as the unnerving knowledge that the man's death had already been arranged.

By mutual agreement they kept up the act of teacher and tutor as Nile brought out a small device disguised as a cell phone and checked the apartment for any bugs while they got a brief tour. It came up clear.

"I already checked," Sullivan – the male – said.

"It never hurts to be thorough," Nile chided mildly. Especially not when the man had no background in covert ops, though neither of them mentioned that. "Do you have a place to talk without a way to observe us?"

With the shades down, the living room fit the bill just fine and passed Nile's inspection. Only then did they settle down and get down to business.

"This is Alex," Nile said by way of introduction. His English kept the slight Australian accent, keeping in line with his disguise. It wasn't needed indoors, but it paid to be thorough. "He will be your son's tutor and protection for the next three weeks. He is an experienced operative. Should anything happen, he will ensure your son's safety."

Safe from prying eyes, Evelyn Sullivan's careful act fell away and she looked both dubious and a little concerned. "He is but a child himself. Andrew -"

"You're sure about this?" her husband interrupted.

His eyes hadn't left Alex since they settled down. Alex remained where he was in the soft chair and didn't fidget, outwards utterly at ease with the situation. The man finally looked away, a little unsettled by Alex's lack of reaction.

"Do not see him as a child, Mrs Sullivan," Nile corrected gently. "Alex is a trained assassin and passed the same tests any of our top operatives would with exceptionally good results. SCORPIA considers him an adult, with an adult's punishment for failure."

Her frown deepened. Alex wondered if she knew just what sort of things her husband had got himself involved with, or if she only had a vague idea. "Punishment?"

"Death. SCORPIA does not offer second chances."

Alex wasn't sure they would actually kill him if he failed this mission, but the family didn't need to know that. Nile's easy reply got the desired reaction, though. Evelyn paled, but Andrew looked grimly satisfied. Alex's already low opinion of the man dropped even further. Alexander Owen was fifteen, physically couldn't pass for more than sixteen at the most, but Sullivan seemed to have no problem at all with possibly sentencing him to death. Lives were obviously expendable when he and his family didn't have to do the dying themselves.

Alex could tell just fine what Sullivan heard when Nile spoke. _You are important to us; important enough to risk a valuable operative for you,_ and Sullivan swallowed it whole.

"He can pass for a normal tutor?"

Nile glanced at him, allowing him to speak for the first time. "Alex?"

"I have excellent grades in all subjects Jacob will need, and I speak three languages fluently, sir. Including French, which I am told he is struggling with." Alex made sure to be polite. His accent had switched to that of the expat child who had spent most of his years in foreign countries. Not quite any of the proper British accents anymore and with a ghost of Arabic in it after years in Qatar.

" _What other?"_ the man spoke in accented French, a slight challenge in the words.

" _Beyond English and French, I am fluent in Spanish as well,"_ Alex answered easily in the same language. All of them well enough that to a non-native speaker, any one of them could have been his first language. They had all agreed not to mention Russian. Alexander Owen had no reason to speak the language, and Sullivan didn't need to know.

The man nodded, apparently satisfied.

"Alex will not be a traditional bodyguard," Nile continued. "He will be a last line of defence, should someone get through security. Even professional soldiers will hesitate to kill a child. That hesitation will be their death."

Andrew Sullivan looked like that settled the matter. Only his wife still looked worried. The man was painfully naïve or hopelessly arrogant, Alex decided, if he didn't grasp that Alex's presence was as much protection as it was insurance against any last minute attacks of conscience or unreasonable demands.

Maybe he did and didn't care, but Alex doubted it. He looked too at ease otherwise for someone who had just agreed to leave their child in the care of one of SCORPIA's assassins. Too sure that Alex was there for his sake and not on his employer's behalf. By all accounts, Andrew Sullivan was a harsh but devoted father. His wife was obviously smarter or more cautious, because she clearly wasn't a fan of the idea … though Alex supposed that could be because of his age, too.

Even knowing what he was, people still underestimated him. Everyone but SCORPIA. It had worked in MI6's favour. Now SCORPIA planned to have it work in theirs as well for as long as they could.

"Alex will be here whenever you are at work," Nile continued and spoke directly to Sullivan. "We have other security in place at night."

"Acceptable," Sullivan agreed. His wife didn't speak, but she didn't argue, either, and Sullivan clearly took that as agreement.

Business out of the way, Evelyn went to fetch Jacob. The door to his room had been closed the entire time. Alex wondered if he had been given orders or if he just didn't have a drop of curiosity in him. Maybe he had been listening by the door. Alex would have, in his place.

The boy looked much like his photo. He was still little paler than Alex would have expected for someone living in Singapore. A little too out of shape to spend much time outdoors. He tried to look polite and somewhat indifferent, but there was a bit of curiosity in his eyes, Alex noticed. Curiosity and wariness at the two strangers.

"Jacob, this is Alexander Owen. He will be your tutor while you're at home. He will be here from eight and until your father gets home on the school days so you won't get behind."

She spoke to him like he was a little dim or a lot younger than he actually was. It didn't seem like an act, either. 'Overprotective' sounded about right to Alex. He was sure Jacob knew exactly how he was doing in school and that 'won't get behind' was just a pretty term for 'try to catch you up to your classmates'.

If Jacob knew what his father was involved in, it certainly wasn't because his parents had told him.

The kid shuffled awkwardly. Held out his hand. "Hi."

Had he ever been that young? That unsure? Alex tried to think back and couldn't remember a time when Ian would ever have allowed that sort of thing. Alex Rider had been a confident kid. Ian Rider had made sure of it.

Then Ian Rider had died, and Alex the kid had died with him. It was a depressing line of thought. Alex firmly ignored it and shook Jacob's hand instead.

"Hello," he greeted, because Alexander Owen's mother insisted on manners and he wanted to make a good impression on his future teacher and the parents that paid for his time. "It's nice to meet you, Jacob."

The kid shrugged. His mother sighed and released him from greeting duties with a small motion. Jacob vanished into his room again so fast Alex was surprised there wasn't a dust cloud left in his wake.

"He's a little shy," she said apologetically. His father just looked annoyed.

"Tomorrow morning, then," Nile said and ignored the awkwardness of it all with the ease of someone who didn't care in the slightest. "Say goodbye for now, Alex."

It was shaping up to be a delightful few weeks, Alex decided as he complied and followed Nile out the door.

* * *

Alex arrived Monday morning just before eight, with a backpack half full of school books as well as several well-concealed guns, a handful of surveillance gear, and enough supplies for a couple of decent-sized explosions. Insurance, Yassen had called it. No one was likely to search a child and he would be grateful if he needed it. It had felt like a twisted version of a parent packing their child's bag for their first day of school, not that Ian had been home to do that.

Alex also had a small earpiece in his left ear. The sound was bad, but it was so small and the colour matched so well to his skin tone that it was effectively invisible. There was a matching microphone on the inside of his wrist, though that would be a lot harder to use without drawing unwanted attention.

At least the air conditioning made it easy to stick to long sleeves and hide both the microphone and the lingering marks of his RTI training. He really didn't want to have to explain the pinkish stripes where the scars from the handcuffs still hadn't completely faded.

Alex arrived just as Andrew Sullivan left. The man barely glanced at him before he was gone, off to do … whatever he did that SCORPIA paid him handsomely for, and Alex was alone with Mrs Sullivan.

Evelyn Sullivan obviously wasn't comfortable with him, and a day to get used to the idea clearly hadn't helped. She watched stiffly as Alex checked the apartment for surveillance but didn't speak until he pronounced it clear.

Somewhere in the apartment, the muted sound of running water had started.

"Jacob is in the shower," she answered before he could ask. "I wanted to talk with you first."

Alex couldn't blame her though he wondered what the point was. She had to know that even if he was there under false pretences, he would never admit to it. Instead he just nodded.

"Of course, ma'am." It paid to be polite, and certainly with his current cover and age. There was no excuse for bad manners with a client. Cool indifference, sure, Yassen was a master in that, but not bad manners.

"How old are you?"

"Fifteen, ma'am." As Alexander Owen's documents would show. Fifteen and two months. Only a month older than Alex Rider.

"And you agreed to this … arrangement?"

Was that concern for him or for the risk of having a disgruntled assassin in the house playing tutor for a child? Alex couldn't entirely tell.

"I go where my employers send me." The safe answer. The true one as well, though maybe not exactly what she wanted to hear.

"And do what they tell you to."

Her question was heavy with implications. Alex's answer was just as heavy in its confirmation.

"Yes, Mrs Sullivan."

"You are very young for your job." Very young for a killer, she didn't say, though Alex heard it just fine.

"Old and skilled enough to pass my tests, ma'am. That's what they care about."

She wanted to ask more, he could tell, but she obviously didn't want to hear the answers because she changed the subject.

"Jacob has a complete list of his curriculum this year and last year. He has kept up well enough in some subjects but he's far behind in languages, and he has started to fall behind in mathematics as well. His teacher last year didn't like him much and I'm afraid that shows. We chose French for his second language but he doesn't have much of an ear for it. Spanish is his third and that unfortunately isn't much better."

Alex nodded. "I'll do my best. A few weeks won't be enough to catch up on two languages, though, and definitely not if he doesn't have an ear for it."

Sullivan sighed softly. "That's all I ask. I won't risk him in school with … things as they are, but I would like him to not fall further behind. The rest he can read up on alone. Give him breaks as needed. He's only thirteen."

Alex Rider at thirteen had already been well into what would turn into his de facto spy training, though on kinder days he liked to imagine Ian Rider had just indulged him and wanted him to survive and be happy. Those days had become few and far between, though.

His own experiences at thirteen was no reason to hold another kid to impossible standards, though. Alex had been gifted already. He learned easily. Picked up new things – skills, languages, hobbies – in no time at all. Not everyone had those advantages and he knew it.

"Yes, ma'am."

The shower had stopped. Mrs Sullivan gestured towards the couch. "Jacob should be out soon. You're welcome to sit and wait."

It was not a suggestion. Alex settled down to wait in uncomfortable silence.

* * *

Jacob turned out to be a real bundle of joy. The awkward, shy exterior hid an equally awkward, bitter child, and Alex couldn't even blame him. Not really.

For the most part he was quiet, though the occasional question showed up. He didn't speak more than two sentences until well into the afternoon when his mother had reluctantly left to take a phone call and Jacob looked up from the textbook. "How old are you?"

" _In French,"_ Alex corrected. Evelyn Sullivan had left the door open to keep an eye on them but she was distracted by the phone. Unlikely to listen in. Jacob had to have timed it for that. His mother refused to leave Alex alone with her son, not that he could blame her.

" _Sorry. How old are you?"_

" _Fifteen."_

Jacob nodded. Stared back at his textbook. _"How much is my mum paying you to be my friend?"_

" _I am not your friend."_ The words came out a lot harsher than he had intended. Mentally Alex winced slightly. Jacob didn't even react. _"Your mother pays me to be your tutor. You don't need to like me."_

" _Tutor and safety."_

" _Security,"_ Alex correctly absently. _"You were listening in."_

Jacob shrugged. _"They think I'm stupid. I'm not. You're an - assassin?_ Bodyguard?" He switched into English for the last word.

" _I would have listened in, too,"_ Alex assured him. _"It can save your life."_ And get him into horrible trouble, but no need to mention that now. _"The word you want is bodyguard. You're better at French than your mother thinks."_

" _My classmates don't like me much. My teacher thinks it's my fault, so she doesn't like me much, either. You didn't answer my question."_

Clever kid.

" _I didn't, and yes, I am. I'm your security for the next few weeks."_

" _My father. He did something."_ He didn't even sound surprised. Alex figured he had probably already suspected something.

" _My employers want him happy. To keep him happy, they need you safe."_

Jacob was silent for a long time and continued his work. His mother sounded like she was about to wrap up her conversation when he spoke again.

" _Will they really kill you if you mess up?"_

" _Probably,"_ Alex answered honestly. _"They don't tolerate mistakes."_

If nothing else, that was the story Nile wanted out there, so that was what Alex stuck to.

Evelyn Sullivan reappeared, sharp eyes taking in anything that might have happened while she was distracted. Neither Alex nor Jacob gave any indications about their conversation.

Jacob was silent for the rest of the afternoon, but he seemed a little less bitter around Alex. Just a little.

* * *

Alex went home in the evenings. Evelyn Sullivan wanted him gone, and while her husband would undoubtedly have liked to keep him around, it was pretty hard to explain a live-in tutor, especially a teenage one. Evelyn called for a cab, and while Alex couldn't put his finger on anything, he was almost sure that the cab driver was an agent.

The security guard by the door to the building helped him with his backpack and patted him on the shoulder as he left that first evening.

 _Bug,_ Alex's mind supplied. The guard shifted from 'unknown' to 'assume compromised' in his mental assessment. He would check when he got home and pass on the information.

"Get home safe, Mr Owen. See you tomorrow."

"Thanks!" Alex threw a wave at the man before he vanished into the cab and rattled off the address to the driver.

The traffic was heavy, but the drive was smooth and the car new and the music on the radio wasn't bad at all.

"Long day?" the driver eventually asked. He had only a slight accent.

"Long enough," Alex said. "I'm tutoring a kid. My mum insists that if I want spending money, I have to work for them."

"Sounds fair to me," the driver agreed.

They fell silent again. Alex spent the time just staring out the window and let his brain turn off for a little while. He was exhausted.

Eventually the cab pulled up in a familiar driveway and Alex paid the driver. There was light on in the house, and when he stepped inside, Crux appeared from the kitchen. Even if she hadn't seen him on surveillance outside, she had to have heard the door unlocked.

Alex made a small gesture towards the shoulder the guard had touched as well as the backpack, followed by the sign for 'bug'. Crux nodded.

"Alex! How did it go?" She sounded genuinely happy to see him and continued in the same breath before he could answer. "Dinner is almost ready. Dad called, he'll be late and told us not to wait for him. You didn't eat, did you?"

She moved silently as she spoke to bring out a small device and run it over Alex.

"No, mum." He shrugged. "It went all right, I think. He's pretty smart, so I'll get him caught up on things. It's not even that bad. I thought he was hopeless, the way his parents talked. They're kind of weird. His mum is crazy overprotective and his dad thinks that anything less than perfect grades is a failure. Did you know he's not even allowed friends over?"

Alex himself clear, she moved the device over his backpack. It blinked twice. Alex ran a finger along the straps where the guard had gripped it. He found the bug hidden in a crease. The sound quality was probably miserable, but it would still work. Short range, too. Someone would have to be nearby. Probably the cab driver.

He flipped the strap up a little to get a closer look. Small and black like the bag, it could pass for just a bit of plastic that had managed to get stuck.

Crux frowned. "No one?"

"Nope. His mum said he just needs to get out of his shell a little, but he's really shy and kind of awkward. I don't think he's used to friends, period."

"Oh." Crux put all kinds of meaning into that word. Sympathy, regret, and a little pity. "That poor child. Go change, honey. Dinner is in fifteen minutes. And don't leave your bag there, you have a room for that."

Leave the bug out of range but don't draw attention. The disadvantages of putting a bug on something like that, Alex knew, though they had probably expected it. He would make sure he lost it on the way to the Sullivans tomorrow.

Alex made himself sound a little embarrassed. "Sorry, mum."

They would let Yassen know about the bug. Let it sit around for the night and make sure they sounded like a perfectly ordinary family whenever it actually picked something up.

It might not erase every suspicion, but it would certainly help.

* * *

Alex was busy that first week. Far busier than he had ever expected.

Workout was in the morning, two hours like Yassen insisted on. That meant he had to be up at four to have time to train, shower and dress, eat breakfast, and still be at the Sullivan's apartment by the time Andrew Sullivan left for work.

He would stay there until Sullivan returned, normally past six, and then return home. Dinner and updates on the mission followed as orders changed slightly or new intel became available. Then his own education. Crux taught him to make a convincing female, starting with make-up and the long, wavy wig she had bought him, and Yassen had supplied him with several school books – he was still only fifteen, and his education did have some large holes in it where SCORPIA hadn't cared.

On the best nights, he could collapse in bed by ten and get a full six hours of sleep. On bad nights, it was a lot later.

The only saving grace about the whole thing was that he was kept too busy to even think, much less linger on the Nice assignment. The numbness was still there, but in the few moments he had to himself, there was always something else to think about. He had a long list from SCORPIA to handle and little time to complete it in. It was a well-paid assignment, but they all worked long hours for it.

The complete surveillance of the apartment was done by Wednesday. Evelyn Sullivan was very careful not to leave Alex alone – with her son or otherwise – at any time, but even she couldn't be there every waking moment, and it was very easy to distract Jacob. He wanted his breaks, too, and Alex's honesty the first day went a long way in making him cooperative.

The hallway already had surveillance – the CIA was SCORPIA's guess – which couldn't be dismantled unless they wanted to draw attention to themselves. Still Alex managed to put up surveillance of their own as well.

He had a thorough assessment of the apartment building by Wednesday as well, and the result wasn't exactly comforting. They had known a lot from blue-prints and their inside help already, but Alex had the advantage of physical proximity. The building was tall, modern, and obviously expensive, with extensive walls of glass and broad, open balconies. The car park in the basement was claustrophobic and a death trap in the making. Sleek and open like the rest of the building, but with no easy escape. Alex hated it every time he had to go down there.

He had still put up surveillance in the car park as well, for all the good it would do. If they spotted an attacker there, it would already be too late to get out without a fight. There were several lifts but only one staircase, which made it easy to block every exit.

Alex would easily be able to escape on his own. The balconies were wide and the drop between them nothing he wasn't used to. It would be risky but doable. With company, however ...

By Thursday, he had Andrew Sullivan's password, a copy of his fingerprints, and a good idea of where the man hid anything incriminating.

Ten undisturbed minutes on Friday and several bits of illegal electronics meant that SCORPIA had full access to everything electronic in Sullivan's office at home from anywhere in the world. Nile had been particularly pleased about that bit. Sullivan knew what his information and contacts were worth and he had been very careful to protect it all, but against an inside agent with access to hardware, password, and fingerprints, even that fell short. Alex didn't even count the lock on his office door as worth mentioning.

Alexander Owen was hired help, security, and tutor, and expendable to his organisation. Alexander Owen had been classified as insignificant by Andrew Sullivan. He had far bigger threats to worry about than a child, even one that happened to be a trained killer.

Alex wondered if he had just helped shorten Sullivan's life even further.

"You have done well, Alex," Nile told him when he dropped by in disguise Friday evening. "Very, very well. Mr Chase is pleased."

Alex supposed that was a good thing. After five days straight of eighteen-hour workdays, he was too exhausted to care in the least. Brendan Chase and Nile could have their thanks. All Alex wanted was to sleep.

* * *

A/N 3: Randomly, my search history for this thing is _fantastic._

A/N 4: I know no one has asked so far, but – like the books – the year this is set in is a little hazy. I've tried to avoid any overly obvious references to years or real world events so I hopefully won't contradict myself too much. Dubai hasn't quite grown to its present day size, and both it and Singapore are missing some skyscrapers compared to its current skyline (though if you combine the dates in March with the weekdays mentioned, you end up with 2004 or 2010, though that was more random choice from the author).

Next: The fact that Alex graduated does not mean Yassen's lessons are over.


	11. Saturday

As always, thank you for the reviews, and I hope you enjoy the fic.

* * *

Yassen let Alex sleep until eight that Saturday. It felt like a luxury. He was rested and awake, and workout that morning was less chore and more enjoyment.

Crux had left before Alex was even up. For the first time in a week, Alex was really alone with Yassen again and awake enough to appreciate it.

It was still weird to see him with a beard, all neatly trimmed and groomed like he had always had it. It had given Alex a whole new appreciation for how little it took to change your looks. Daniel Owen looked very little like Yassen Gregorovich, who was wanted by any number of intelligence agencies.

"You have done well," Yassen told him when they had almost finished breakfast. It felt bizarrely normal, like any other family, in a way the safe-house in Russia never had. Alex had been Yassen's student then. He still was, but their cover called for being father and son now. He suspected that had bled into their normal interactions a little, too. The Owens' house felt like a home.

"Thank you." It mattered, coming from Yassen. Alex took a deep breath. "So what are the plans for today?"

"Hunting." Alex's good mood abruptly turned darker at Yassen's words. "I have tracked down several operatives that belong to one of our competitors. There has been a security leak. We need to eliminate them before they become a problem."

"We," Alex repeated.

"We," Yassen agreed. "You are still reluctant to kill, Alex. You hesitated in Nice. Not enough that it could not be excused to the board as a wish to be certain of the shot, but I trained you."

Yassen trained him. Yassen knew him. Alex didn't try to deny it.

"I know. I'm sorry." He wasn't even sure what he was apologising for. Maybe for almost failing. For almost forcing Yassen to take the shot instead and deal with the consequences. Maybe for not being what Yassen had tried to teach him to be.

"You will learn."

Promise and threat and order all in one. Alex considered arguing for a moment but knew it would do nothing. Not when Yassen had made up his mind.

"Yes, sir," he agreed, because that was not Yassen speaking to Alex but Cossack to his student.

He stared at his mostly-emptied plate. The nausea was back. His breakfast felt like lead in his stomach. It had to be obvious to Yassen, because he sighed.

"Alex." He waited until Alex actually looked up before he continued. "If someone is willing to pay SCORPIA's fees, the target is already dead. You do not hire a Malagosto graduate on a whim. If you do not kill them, someone else will, and your life will be forfeit for your failure."

Alex took a slow breath. "What, you're not going to tell me they all deserve to die? That they have to have done something to earn that sort of attention?" He couldn't keep the anger out of his voice.

"No." Calm, cool, and unruffled as always. "You are one of SCORPIA's assassins. You are a graduate of the most elite school of murder in the world. It is not your place to care about the reasons. It is not your concern if they deserve death. Someone paid to have them killed. Your only concern is to see that done. It is business, nothing more. You are not the judge or the jury, Alex. You are only the executioner."

 _Executioner._ The word settled dark and horrible in his mind.

"And if I don't want to be?"

"Then you will fail, and you will die."

Alex had to wonder if that alternative was really that bad. Yassen's words were calm and rational. They made sense, and he didn't want them to. Was that how his father had justified it? But his father had faked some of his assassinations, too. The people who might not have deserved to die.

It would have been a low blow from Yassen to compare him to his father. Alex appreciated that he didn't. Alex did quite enough of that on his own, and the rest of SCORPIA wasn't much better. Being Hunter's son had taken on a much darker meaning after Nice.

"Finish your breakfast, Alex. We leave in half an hour. Bring your rifle."

Alex took that as the order it was. He picked up his fork and forced himself finish the last bites, fighting his nausea all the while.

* * *

With Joanne Owen unexpectedly called into work, Alexander and his father had the day to themselves.

In a brand new country they still weren't used to, they decided to spend the day sightseeing. With Yassen's camera, Alex's backpack, sunglasses, and light, loose clothes for both of them, they could have been any father and son out to play tourists for the day. Those same outfits carefully hid two guns and a pair of combat knives on Yassen, the same on Alex, as well as two concealable sniper rifles in his backpack.

The Audi was a hideously expensive waste of money, what with cabs and public transportation everywhere, but Alex really appreciated the air conditioning. Yassen checked the car under the guise of indulging his teenage son's natural curiosity about the powerful machine. It was the first time Alexander's father hadn't been busy until well into the evening that week.

They had a tail but lost it easily. It was not particularly experienced agent, Alex guessed. They still took their precautions and spent several hours in a mall and reappeared with a number of shopping bags for the both of them as well as a gift for Joanne. They passed by several tourist spots as well and took photos like everyone else. It felt weirdly like when he had travelled with Ian, before everything had gone to hell.

Only then, with their cover firmly established, did Yassen continue on to their actual target.

Their destination turned out to be a marina, all calm water, expensive boats, and lush greenery with expensive-looking buildings lining the waterfront. They parked a good distance away and walked the last bit, just tourists out to admire the place.

Yassen led them to one of the newer buildings that rose high above them. Well-dressed, perfectly at ease, and with the required keycard and key, no one looked twice at them. Through the lobby and the blissful air conditioning, then into a lift. Neither spoke on the way.

Alex had expected a hotel, but the building was clearly all private apartments. The one Yassen led them to had a name on it that Alex didn't recognise but the place looked perfectly ordinary.

Yassen unlocked the door and they stepped inside. The first impression Alex got was stale air and a perfectly cleaned, high-end home, mostly kept in light wood and white materials, and with large windows and a balcony overlooking the marina.

Yassen watched him as he looked around. "Tell me what you see."

It was a familiar order. Alex turned around slowly to take in the place proper. "The air smells stale, like the windows haven't been opened proper in a while. The air conditioning is still on, though. There's nothing on the tables, no shoes sitting out, and there's a key rack but nothing on it."

He moved further into the apartment, careful not to leave any evidence behind, and Yassen followed like a silent shadow. "Nothing on the kitchen table or the counters, the mail's in a neat stack, the sink is bone dry, but the plants look fine." He glanced at Yassen. "The owners are gone for a while. It's an expensive place, though, so I'm guessing the help drops by occasionally?"

"Every three days," Yassen confirmed. "She was here yesterday. The owners will be gone for two more weeks."

"She's bribed?" That would explain how he had the key.

"Inadequate security. It was easy to steal the key and keycard and have copies made."

He crossed the room to stand by the window. Alex followed. The water was clear blue and the marina full of a number of white boats, all in neat rows and almost painfully bright in the sunlight.

"This place also has a very convenient view of the larger yachts. The large one closest to the island is the _Victory._ Currently rented, through a number of perfectly legitimately businesses, to the vice chairman of one of SCORPIA's competitors. He is unfortunately not enough of a fool to be here in person, since there is a significant prize on his head, but the _Victory_ does serve as a mobile base for their people. I spent the last four days watching them and hunting down their hired muscle. Security is too high to get close enough to plant explosives, but they are a little more lax about snipers."

"We won't get more than a few shots in before they find cover." Yassen had to know that.

"We have a few priority targets. The rest are low-level grunts and would merely be an additional bonus. Two shots each should be enough. I will hunt down the stragglers myself later. With the primary operatives dead, they will be useless."

Two shots each, assuming Alex hit his targets. Assuming he did it fast enough. Assuming he didn't hesitate.

Yassen had effectively gambled their success on Alex's abilities. It was one thing for Alex to know his own life was at risk if he failed. It was something else to realise that Yassen would be held accountable in this case as well.

"Right. No pressure, then."

Yassen glanced at him. "I trained you. If I cannot trust you with this, the blame lies with me."

Alex nodded mutely. He didn't quite trust his voice. Yassen had trained him. Yassen knew him. Well enough to pinpoint the one thing that might actually teach Alex not to hesitate – when it wasn't just his own life on the line, but when his hesitation could get someone close to him killed as well.

He had learned to work through his horror of the human-shaped cut-out targets through repeated exposure. Real murders, with real bodies and real consequences … that was something else entirely, but Alex had the horrible suspicion that Yassen would make him learn the same way he had with the cut-out targets in the first place.

Repeated exposure. One kill after the other until they stopped being human, until they became targets again, and he became desensitised to it. Was that how Yassen himself had learned? Was that was Hunter had taught him? But Hunter had told him to run, to get away from SCORPIA. He had trained him but he had never wanted that life for Cossack.

Had Yassen taught himself, then? Or had it been a natural result of his job? Alex didn't ask. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

Instead he forced himself to focus on the yacht below them again. "Has the leak been found?"

"We have a reasonable suspicion. Crux's task for the day is to confirm it and handle any containment."

Alex nodded. "One of those things I shouldn't ask about?" he asked, just a little bitter.

"In this case, a way to keep you above suspicion." For a second, it seemed like that was all Yassen would say about that. Then he continued. "There is a small but significant risk that this operation will go wrong. If you know nothing but the most necessary about operatives, plans, and objectives, if you do your job to the boards' satisfaction and ask no question, you will be held blameless for anything that happens beyond your own objectives. It is a black mark on your record to have your first real operation fail. New operatives draw suspicion in a way experienced, tested ones do not. Operatives have been disposed of for less."

Point to Yassen. Alex could live just fine without drawing the suspicions of SCORPIA just yet, especially for something he had nothing to do with. He couldn't blame them, either. If they had a leak somewhere, it would make sense to look to the new operatives first. To Alex. What he didn't know, he couldn't pass on to competitors or the authorities. On accident or otherwise.

The wide windows offered a perfect angle and the blinds enough cover to hide them mostly from sight. The position would be a little awkward, but that didn't seem to bother Yassen. He had probably tried worse.

They set up the rifles in silence, careful not to leave evidence behind. Alex had it mostly down to instinct after endless hours of practice, but watching Yassen reminded him how far he still had to go. Swift, efficient motions, and never a single movement more than necessary; the rifle was nothing more than an extension of the man.

Blinds mostly down and the window cracked open just enough to take the shot, they settled in to wait.

It took nearly three hours before anyone appeared. Yassen never moved, his breathing slow and steady in the silence. He was used to the wait, Alex knew. He had age and experience on his side.

Alex, fifteen and restless and horribly aware of what he would have to do, had a harder time. He tried, tried to throw his mind back to lessons in Russia, to hours spent in silence, but his mind was too loud.

" _Alex._ " Yassen's reprimand was little more than an exhale.

Alex nodded. Very slightly. Took a steadying breath. Tried again. Calm, steady. Even heartbeat. Even breathing. No focus in the world but the scope. Nothing that mattered but the white yacht in his sight. Trust Yassen to know the apartment was safe. Trust his precautions. Trust his experience. Trust his training.

He had to focus. Block out the thoughts. Block out the discomfort. Block out everything but the rifle and his targets.

Time stilled. Stopped and sped up in a way he couldn't quite explain. Nothing changed, and he was aware that the minutes ticked on, but the sense of the time passed was hazy. The shadows shifted, slow and steady. The sky grew cloudier. His rifle never moved.

Finally someone appeared from inside the yacht and stirred Alex from his mild trance. He blinked.

Two people, both male. They moved with the grace of trained fighters, the slight edge of restrained violence. Alex's world narrowed down to the two men on the deck, and then three more appeared behind them, male as well.

"Front left, white shirt. Priority target one. Front right, t-shirt. Priority target two." Yassen's instructions were calm, low, and clinical. "Back right, blue shirt. Priority target three. Back middle and left, secondary targets, four and five."

Alex didn't answer and Yassen didn't expect it, merely continued his instructions.

"You have priority target two and secondary target four. Clean head-shots. Ten seconds."

Alex shifted his rifle slightly. Focused on the man with the t-shirt. Yassen didn't offer a name or the list of crimes the man had undoubtedly committed as an operative for one of SCORPIA's competitors. Alex shouldn't need it. It was not his job to know. He didn't need the complications.

He made a brief note of his secondary target's location. Then he focused entirely on his primary target. Took the wind and distance and their location and motions into account.

Memories of Nice pushed their way through his sharp focus – _the rough surface of a rooftop, the smell of sea and city and sunlight –_ but he forced them aside to deal with later, because right now he couldn't afford the distraction, couldn't afford -

Yassen's low countdown snapped him out of it. "Three, two, one -"

Alex didn't allow himself to think. He pulled the trigger and shifted his aim an instant later, his second target already in his sight. He was only vaguely aware of the crack of Yassen's rifle beside him as it fired for the third time even as Alex's second bullet found its target.

Then it was over. Five dead bodies on the yacht, pristine white stained with blood, and far below someone screamed.

"We leave. Now."

Alex obeyed without hesitation. They took only long enough to make sure any evidence of their presence was gone and everything looked exactly as it had when they had arrived.

The lift was empty. The mirror showed the two of them, Yassen calm and unruffled and the very image of upper-class, and Alex's slightly paler expression. His eyes didn't look like his own, too wide and weary, and Alex shuddered.

There had been a lot of blood on the yacht. He wondered if they would get the white clean again. Did it just wash off on a surface like that?

"Calm," Yassen told him, too low to be picked up by any microphones but still utterly unyielding. "If you look suspicious, you draw attention we cannot afford. I assure you, the body count will be much higher if we have to fight our way out."

It wasn't even a threat, Alex knew, but simply a statement of facts. Alex took a shuddering breath. Closed his eyes. Forced his frantic heartbeat to calm a little. When he opened them again, he looked a little more normal.

Not a moment too soon. The lift came to a gentle halt. The door opened. They were in the lobby, all light and airy and populated.

There weren't too many people, and they were cluttered by the main entrance, though still inside as if the glass doors might protect them from a bullet.

Alex couldn't hear their words from that distance, but he could hear the low, indistinct murmur and read the body language. Shock, worry, fear – someone died out there, someone got killed, murdered, _shot_ , and they were close enough to see the blood against the white boat in the marina.

There was a lot of blood, Alex remembered.

The first, faint sound of a siren appeared in the distance. Yassen led them away from the crowds, out through one of the emergency exits. From air conditioning into the open, and the shock of the heat and humidity helped clear Alex's mind a little.

The sirens had grown louder.

The walk to the car, calm and steady and so careful not to look out of place, had Alex expecting a bullet through his head at any moment. It wasn't just SCORPIA present, their competitors were there, too, and the authorities were on to them -

There were a lot of people that wanted him dead. That wanted both of them dead. Dead or imprisoned, though in Yassen's case he knew it was the former. In his, probably both, not that SCORPIA would consider imprisonment an acceptable situation.

Alex had just shot someone. Had shot two someones. He carried the evidence of five murders in his backpack. If they could target five people like that, how did he know a sniper wasn't watching them as well?

He didn't. He didn't, but Yassen looked at ease, entirely like he belonged there, and Alex would have to trust him.

The first police car drove past them, sirens on and lights flashing. There was an ambulance close behind, though Alex knew there was nothing to be done.

They passed by a small group of people, pointing back towards the marina. Yassen kept walking.

Alex had never appreciated the value of a teenage operative until he had seen how his presence made people overlook everything else. Yassen was not a threat or the assassin behind the five dead bodies, Yassen was the father of a teenage son, and it was simply impossible that he could be both. Assassins were solitary creatures. They didn't work well with others, and much less with a teenager.

The car was where they had left it. Alex didn't know why he had expected anything else. Yassen checked it thoroughly inside and out before they started the drive back, no different from any other car on the road.

The air conditioning kicked in. Alex still felt sweaty and the backpack felt impossibly heavy in his lap.

They still had the rifles. They were evidence. A liability. If they were pulled over …

Yassen took a large detour to the safe-house and an entirely different route than on the way out, but about halfway back he found a parking spot near a number of stores.

"We have weapons to dispose of," he said before Alex could ask.

Alex followed him inside what looked like a mid-range jewellery store. Yassen looked around for a second before he crossed the room to where a middle-aged Asian man stood behind the counter. Alex guessed Chinese, though he had no real idea. He didn't have enough experience to even begin to guess what country he was from, though if he stuck around with SCORPIA long enough, he would probably learn.

"I called about a ring for my wife. Under the name Daniel Owen?"

The man smiled. "Of course, sir. Please, follow me."

He called an assistant to take over and led them behind the counter, through a room in the back. Down a hallway, and up a staircase, and into an office that the man locked thoroughly behind him.

"Mr Cossack, I was told to expect you," he greeted respectfully.

Yassen nodded. "Ang, this is Orion, my student and a recent graduate. Orion, this is Ang, one of SCORPIA's primary contacts for firearms in this area."

"Pleasure, sir," Alex greeted politely.

"Likewise, Mr Orion."

Patience for pleasantries over, Yassen got to the point. "We have two rifles to exchange. They are evidence now, so treat them accordingly. Orion?"

Alex took his cue and unpacked the two riles from his bag. Ang accepted them and put them in a large case. Two new, identical rifles appeared from a second case. Yassen checked them both thoroughly with practised motions before he accepted them with a small nod.

Alex packed them away. The whole thing had taken less than five minutes. Ang handed Yassen a small box as well.

"A suitable ring. It should fit Ms Crux's size."

"Efficient as always," Yassen agreed. "Your payment will arrive through the usual channels."

Ang led them back downstairs. The backpack felt a little less heavy. The rifles would still get them into a ton of trouble if they were found with them, but at least they were no longer a death sentence.

Only when they were back inside the car – thoroughly checked again, because Yassen would accept nothing less – did the man speak again.

"You did not hesitate. You managed well today."

Alex closed his eyes. Saw blood and bodies and weapons, but accepted it with tired resignation in a way he hadn't done in Nice. This was his life now. Yassen had proven that to him. He hadn't wanted to kill the two men but he hadn't hesitated, either. It didn't matter what Alex Rider wanted, not anymore. He could refuse, but Yassen knew him too well. He knew just what strings to pull to get the result he wanted. "And tomorrow?" He wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"We handle the security leak."

Correction. Alex _knew_ he didn't want to hear the answer.

* * *

Next: Theory gets put into practice. Alex really wishes it didn't.


	12. Sunday

A/N: I should probably just admit that the warning for grim subject matters will be a permanent thing, because SCORPIA.

* * *

Alex didn't sleep much that night. When he did, he found himself underwater and struggling against invisible ropes, running out of air, lungs burnings, and he was going to _die -_

\- And he would wake up, soaked in sweat and tangled in the sheets and trembling, and he could still hear Dr Three's voice above it all.

 _Just tell me something useful, and we can put this unpleasantness behind us._

Alex gave up at four and went to work out. Force the nightmares away through exhaustion. At least it was a productive coping method, Yassen had told him. No one had mentioned torture and interrogation in as many words, but Alex knew what the words 'handle the security leak' meant.

The house was silent, though Yassen's arrival a few minutes later told him that he hadn't been as quiet as he had hoped. Not that Yassen slept all that long most nights.

Yassen didn't speak but merely began his usual stretches. He didn't ask why Alex was already up, nor why it looked like he hadn't slept. Eventually the silence got to Alex, like Yassen had known it would. It always did.

"I can't," Alex finally said. "I can't torture someone. I won't. I refuse. You can't make me."

What would win in a battle of wills? His own stubbornness and determination or the obedience that Yassen had painfully instilled in him over the months? Alex didn't know, but he had the horrible suspicion he was about to find out. Yassen knew his weaknesses and how to exploit them, and Alex knew that Yassen himself had very few of the same in turn.

"There won't be any need. Crux has had ample opportunity to put Dr Three's lessons to practical use in her years here. She is a skilled student."

 _Skilled student._ Alex thought of the woman who had cut his hair and patiently taught him about make-up and female fashion and high heels. He imagined Dr Three's favourite instruments in those same hands and shuddered against his will.

He didn't know why he was surprised. She was a Malagosto graduate and obviously ruthless enough to oversee one of SCORPIA's drug operations. Nile had the perfectly friendly manner down to an art, too.

"But you'll make me watch."

"You did not have the opportunity to observe a practical demonstration while you attended Malagosto. Exposure will be useful to you in the future. Better to do so now, in safe surroundings."

Which meant that sometimes those practical demonstrations _did_ happen. Alex wondered what sort of victims Dr Three had brought in for that. Students who had failed their RTI? Undercover agents that had been caught? He knew better than to ask. Yassen would answer.

Alex was suddenly glad he hadn't decided to have a bit of breakfast before training.

"Right," he bit out, "make me watch and call it educational, because that's _so_ much better. And what are you going to do if I refuse? Threaten me with SCORPIA again? That won't always work."

At least a bullet to the head was instant and probably painless. That made it a little easier. Torture and interrogation, on the other hand …

Yassen's eyes cooled a degree. If Alex hadn't spent so much time with him, he would never have noticed. "Would you prefer to assist instead, then? Even Hunter had blood on his hands. He did not enjoy the task, but he was gifted enough to earn Dr Three's compliments. I know our good doctor would be delighted to see if you can match your father's skills."

And there it was, the comparison with his father. Part of Alex knew he deserved it, too. Yassen knew about his plans. Had a pretty good idea, anyway. He wasn't just comparing Orion to Hunter. He was comparing one potential double agent to another.

"How about neither? I refuse! I'm _fifteen_ ," Alex snapped, careful to keep his voice low enough not to draw Crux's attention. "I've killed. I'm wanted for terrorist activities. MI6 would lock me up for life. _I have nowhere else to go!_ Isn't that enough for them?"

Yassen closed the distance between them in two steps. Alex held his ground. "Do you think you are not still being tested? Did you think Malagosto and your graduation was all they cared about?"

Alex stared back, not yielding an inch. "I don't care. _I refuse._ "

Yassen's expression shifted slightly. Became unreadable even to Alex. "Do you believe I cannot make you, Alex? You are still my student."

Alex vividly remembered the feeling of Yassen's hand around his throat the last time the man had lost his patience. He raised his head defiantly. "SCORPIA needs me unharmed to finish my part of the operation. Finger-shaped bruises on my throat would draw an awful lot of attention."

"SCORPIA," Yassen corrected mercilessly, "needs you visibly unharmed and well enough to do your job. They are aware of your unfortunate tendency to act before you think. To mouth off to your superiors. A fifteen-year-old, pampered English child, and a Rider at that? I have free hands to train you in whatever manner I see fit."

The words sent the dread in the pit of Alex's stomach curling upwards, until it wrapped around his chest and settled deep in his body. He refused to let it stop him. "I'm not going along with it like a good little assassin is supposed to, so now it's time for violence instead? I hope you have two weeks to spare," he challenged and knew perfectly well Yassen would get the reference. Alex had passed resistance to interrogation. He knew just how much he could withstand if he had to.

Yassen reached out and gripped his chin. Alex didn't flinch. "You make things overly complicated, Alex. You think like a spy. I would not need two weeks. Merely bring you to the same room as our unwilling guest and proceed with the lesson. You can close your eyes. You cannot close your ears. Crux is delighted at the chance to share her talents with such a promising student. She would explain everything in great detail. How long could you listen to the screams before you felt compelled to watch? How long before your imagination became far worse than any tool in her collection?"

Alex narrowed his eyes. "I don't care. I refuse."

And then, to Alex's surprise, Yassen's expression shifted to faint, amused resignation and what might just be a hint of pride.

"As stubborn as your father," he said and released his grip. "I will make you a deal. You have had little chance to practice unarmed combat this week. We will rectify that. Two full hours. If you win or even draw blood, I release you from your obligations today. If not, you will obey without the use of violence to force the issue. You will watch, but I will not make you assist. In return for your cooperation, I will ensure you will have a week of downtime after this operation. You will have quiet and privacy. You will be with me, but you will not be on SCORPIA business."

They both knew it was an easy offer for Yassen to make. Alex stood no chance at all against him. He had learned a lot but not enough to hold his own against someone of Yassen's skill.

Alex also knew an ultimatum when he heard it, and he knew just what Yassen was capable of. The man didn't want to hurt him, Alex knew that much, but it wouldn't stop him. Alex would be present, willingly or not. He stood no chance against Yassen, but there was always that small bit of hope. And when he failed … he would still get the week of downtime. A week with Yassen, but still a week away from SCORPIA and the deaths that followed in their wake.

He wanted to refuse. He wanted to stand his ground. The pragmatic part of him that sounded suspicious like Yassen knew he should cut his losses and be grateful for what he did get.

Alex opened his mouth. The refusal was on the tip of his tongue. Then he remembered drowning and tunnel vision, coughing up water until he cried and his throat was raw and he couldn't even talk, and he closed his mouth again. The man was dead no matter what. Alex's presence would make no difference, and Yassen could deal out pain with terrifying skill. Alex would pay for his stubbornness. Maybe not today, maybe not until after the operation was over, but soon enough. Alex had offered the challenge, sure, but he didn't want to go through that again if he could avoid it. Not now. Possibly not ever, and Yassen knew that, too.

"All right," he finally said. The words tasted bitter and felt too much like a surrender. "But I don't like it, and I will never do it again. You want me to learn, fine. This once. If you try this again, I'll refuse and I'll pay whatever price I have to."

"This once and no more," Yassen agreed. "You are not required to like it. You are simply required to learn."

Alex didn't manage to draw blood in those two hours, much less actually win a fight, but he did leave Yassen with several bruises. That was more than he had ever managed in Russia.

By the time they finished, hunger had overtaken the low-level nausea and Alex was thoroughly tired and sweaty. He would be sore and bruised by evening, and getting up in the morning would be even worse, but he felt better for it, too. He had tried his best. It wasn't good enough, but he had improved a lot. By the time he was out of the shower and dressed again, he felt a little more human. Crux had left sometime in the meanwhile. To prepare things, Yassen had said. Alex hadn't asked any further, but breakfast had still been a little hard to finish.

On Saturday, their destination had been high-end homes. Sunday morning, Alex found himself in a large basement underneath a building near the Port of Singapore instead.

Crux was already there with two guards that looked like locals. Neither man looked twice at Alex.

"You never saw a practical lesson in interrogation at Malagosto, did you?" Crux asked Alex when they arrived.

"No, we never got the chance." _Thankfully,_ Alex didn't add.

"Not every class does," Yassen agreed. "Crux attended Malagosto when the Iranians attempted to get an undercover agent in place."

"Dr Three was quite pleased with the opportunity for a practical lesson," Crux said. She sounded honestly delighted. Alex felt sick. "We were very fortunate to be given the opportunity to learn from him."

The familiar nausea was back. Both at the thought of the torture he was about to watch and the realisation of what he would have faced, if they had caught him. Would still face if they did. Maybe that was part of why Yassen had been so determined to have him watch, too. A brutal warning to be careful.

Crux unlocked a solid-looking door and led them inside. The two guards stayed outside, though for privacy or security Alex wasn't sure.

The room was tiled, white, and the floor slightly sloped with a drain in the middle. The counter embedded in the floor was made of solid and perfectly smooth metal. For ease of cleaning, Alex remembered with a sickening feel. The whole place smelled faintly like chemicals and looked as clean as an operating room. Dr Three's classroom had been just as clean. Clinically so. If there was any evidence left from previous victims, Alex would be surprised.

There was a single chair bolted to the floor and a man in it, soundly secured with a combination of handcuffs and duct tape. Caucasian, probably around fifty, and stripped naked.

The man's mouth was already taped shut. Alex must have stared, because Crux smiled. The fond smile looked a lot more sinister than it had just the day before.

"It gets a little dreary to listen to them insist we have the wrong person, that they're _innocent_ , and that we should let them go. I like to emphasise their position before I start on the questions. They're much less likely to lie to me and very eager to talk, since they don't know when I'll give them the chance again."

She sounded like a teacher; no different than the time she spent in the evenings when she taught him to pass for female.

The man made a muffled sound. His hands clenched as he strained against the duct tape that held him securely in place. He looked terrified, with wide, reddened eyes and wet stripes from tears down his cheeks.

Something in Alex's chest clenched. His hands felt clammy. He forced himself to look as emotionless as Yassen had tried to teach him to be and knew he didn't quite succeed. He wondered if that was what he had looked like himself, those two weeks at Dr Three's mercy.

"Orion, meet Matthew. He's in charge of IT security in one of the largest American banks here. He is one of Andrew Sullivan's old classmates from university. That made him a very easy man to approach for Andrew … and a very easy man for the Internal Security Department to find. He carried a number of naughty things on him when we found him. All sorts of surveillance. I left him here overnight to give him a chance to really appreciate his situation."

She gripped the man's hair. Smiled sharply when it drew a pained, garbled cry through the duct tape. A line of blood ran down his neck. She had pulled hard enough to tear out hair and skin, Alex realised.

"Matthew, this is Orion. Let me be the first to assure you that you will find no more mercy from him than from myself or Cossack here. He's a graduate from the same school as us. A very special sort of school. The sort where your final exam is just pure murder. Orion assassinated an MI6 agent for his graduation. A lovely head-shot. He could have aimed for the heart, but he wanted to make Cossack proud. We all have high expectations of him."

Crux pulled hard and abrupt. Something tore with a sickening, wet sound. This time the man screamed behind the tape, the sound fading into choked sobs as he struggled to breathe through the pain. Crux ignored him and threw aside the strip of bloody hair in her hand. The blood ran freely now. Alex remembered from somewhere that head injuries always bled a lot.

Crux stepped up to the counter. Unrolled a set of tools. Gestured for Alex to approach. Between her and Yassen, Alex knew he had no choice but to do as he was told.

"Now, you should be familiar with most of these," Crux began, every bit the patient teacher. "Let us start with the pliers."

* * *

In the end, it took very little to get the man to speak. He didn't have training in any sort of resistance, and with his communication with the ISD gone, he knew there was no rescue nearby, either.

Alex was grateful. Crux looked mildly disappointed but stepped aside to pack up her tools and the small camera that had never stopped recording since the session began.

He could see why SCORPIA had used her to build a drug operation from scratch. She worked with less finesse and patience than Dr Three, but she had the same delight in the job. Alex didn't doubt she had needed to make an example out of a number of people and done so with bloody, brutal efficiency. Yassen was an assassin that occasionally branched out into the business of pain if needed. Crux was a torturer that occasionally branched out into the business of assassinations that didn't directly involve her victims.

Next to Alex, Yassen calmly attached a suppressor to a Glock, raised the gun, and fired at point-blank range at the man in one, smooth motion.

Even with the suppressor, the gunshot was thunderous to Alex. He had expected it, had looked away the instant he understood what was about to happen, but he still flinched at the sound. Too little for Crux to have seen with her back to him, but Yassen definitely had.

For a moment, he was back at Sayle Enterprises in Cornwall and watched Yassen shoot a guard in cold blood.

He closed his eyes briefly. Fought the sudden rush of adrenaline back under control. Yassen was still a killer, but this time they were on the same side. For now, at least.

Yassen probably knew, because he led Alex out of the room without a word. Crux followed and stopped only for long enough to give a curt order to the two guards.

"Dispose of it."

Neither of the two as much as blinked. They had to be used to it. They simply vanished into the room, and Alex fled outside into the fresh air and daylight before he could see them bring the dead body back out with them. He wanted to throw up.

Alex didn't speak for most of the drive back, and Yassen was not the talkative type on the best of days. Only when they were almost back at the house did he finally look at Yassen.

"This once," he said, quietly and firmly. "I won't do it again." He would take drowning first.

"This once," Yassen agreed. "And I will not demand it of you."

That would have to be good enough. Up ahead, the house came into view.

"If I'd failed resistance to interrogation ..." Alex didn't want to know but part of him had to ask, anyway. His curiosity would get him into serious trouble one day. Already had with MI6. It was only a matter of time before it happened with SCORPIA, too.

Yassen glanced at him. "I would have killed you." A statement of fact, nothing more.

Alex nodded once. Accepted the answer. Yassen had an ability to inspire both fear and gratitude at the same time. A year ago, Alex would have taken the answer as a threat. Now, with vivid memories of Dr Three and Crux both, he took it for the mercy it would have been.

They reached the driveway and parked, Crux not too far behind them. Alex undid his seatbelt and reach for the handle but hesitated at the last second.

"Thank you," he said and slipped outside. He knew Yassen would understand it was for the answer and the promise both.

Nile showed up two hours later in his ever-present disguise. He had already gone through the recording by then, and he did not look all that pleased with the situation. In fact, it was the most annoyed expression Alex had seen from him yet.

Alex couldn't blame him. It was more than just surveillance and a vague suspicion that something was wrong. The Internal Security Department was close. The man hadn't know much, but he had know enough. Sullivan had been too careless. There had to be evidence somewhere, enough to draw the attention of both the ISD and SCORPIA's competitors. The man had known nothing about the CIA, but if there was evidence, odds were that they were close, too.

Nile's voice was less friendly than usual, too. Sharper. Pure business. "We need two more days. More if possible, but two more days will do."

Yassen just nodded slightly. Alex could almost see the mental list of targets update itself in Yassen's mind to find the best way to delay the investigation.

"Intel?" Crux asked. "The ISD removed their plant, but the CIA agent posing as security is still stationed by the Sullivans. It looks like a joint operation. He could be persuaded to talk."

 _Persuaded._ Alex wondered how many times she'd had to wash her hands to get them clean. Her nail polish still looked flawless.

Nile shook his head. "It would take too long. Draw unwanted attention. I will speak with Sullivan tonight. Impress the seriousness of the situation upon them. Things are deteriorating. They need to be ready to leave at a moment's notice." He glanced at Alex. "They are permitted to bring the bare minimum. You know what is safe. Make sure they comply."

Nothing that could be identified. Nothing that could be tracked. Alex remembered very well.

Nile looked only marginally less annoyed when he left. Considering that he was about to go talk to the man whose carelessness could very well have caused the entire operation to fail, Alex didn't even blame him.

If Andrew Sullivan survived even an hour past the required two days, Alex would be surprised.

* * *

Alex arrived at the Sullivans' apartment bright and early Monday morning. He was sore and bruised as expected, but it was nothing that couldn't be hidden by his clothes. He had barely slept and it became obvious soon after that he wasn't the only one. Even if he didn't know Nile had talked to them, it was clear something had changed. Andrew Sullivan looked harried. His wife looked a lot more concerned than she had on Friday.

The shooting at the marina had been front-page news. Alex didn't doubt they had both read that, too.

Judging by Mrs Sullivan's expression when her husband left and Alex settled down with Jacob, she had managed to connect the dots just fine. She couldn't know for sure if Alex had anything to do with the shooting, but even just the very real possibility had to be a harsh reminder that the teenager tutoring her son was not just on security detail. The shooting at the marina, followed by Nile's visit – it had not been a good weekend for them.

Sullivan didn't even look at Alex when he left, and he barely took the time to say goodbye to his wife and son before he was gone. Alex wasn't sure what exactly Nile had told the man, but he knew it wasn't good. Likely a threat to Sullivan himself. His wife looked worried, just as Sullivan himself had, but not worried enough that the threat had been aimed at their son.

Thank you, SCORPIA, for teaching him the delicate language of threats. Like the language of flowers, but for terrorists.

Alex was not in a good mood that morning. Jacob was little better, but a bitter, sulking thirteen-year-old upset because no one told him anything had nothing on Zeljan Kurst in a vindictive mood, and Alex ignored it easily.

In a moment of pity, he did give Jacob a one-hour break and left him alone with his computer games. It wasn't like they had managed to get much done that morning, anyway.

Evelyn Sullivan had four suitcases out on the floor when Alex reappeared from Jacob's room.

Alex debated for a moment if he should just ignore it. Then he remembered Nile's orders and sighed. "You can't bring that much along, ma'am. It'll be too much to carry if we have to leave in a hurry."

The worry in her expression had faded a little. Now she mostly looked annoyed. Annoyed and short-tempered. "It's not easy to choose from a whole life."

"I wouldn't know, ma'am. I wasn't allowed to keep anything when I started my training." Alex's tone of voice was a little less polite than it should have been, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

Sullivan stilled. Then she sighed softly. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't take this out on you." She hesitated. "What are your orders?"

Alex wondered if she expected the truth. Probably not. "Security first. Tutoring second." He paused for a moment. "Past that … anything else you need me for, I guess, as long as it doesn't go against my other orders."

Sullivan nodded. "Your name … I know it's nothing more than an alias. You are Alexander Owen for now. You will be someone else later. You're used to new identities. Will you help me with this? I've never ..."

She trailed off and looked a little lost for the first time since Alex had met her. Alex had left his entire life behind when he had taken Yassen's offer. He didn't have much to be sentimental about in the first place, and he knew the consequences if MI6 managed to hunt him down. It hadn't been easy to leave it all behind, but it had been necessary. Evelyn Sullivan had never had that sort of brutal wake-up call.

The apartment was carefully decorated, all understated wealth and filled with paintings and small sculptures from up-and-coming artists, the walk-in closets filled with expensive clothes, and they could take none of it with them.

Alex shook his head. "Skip the suitcases for one. Use one of Jacob's duffel bags. They're easier to carry. You want cash, papers, and any vital medicine. Don't bring anything that can be tracked or identified. No electronics, no jewellery that's unique and valuable enough to be noticed. A change of clothes, but nothing that stands out. Practical shoes. You will need to learn to be someone else entirely. Evelyn Sullivan likes art. Whoever you will have to become, you will need to find another hobby, another style, different looks. Whatever you do, you can never mention your old name again. Never. All it takes is one wrong word at the wrong time. If you can't do this, you might as well not bother."

She took a deep breath. Nodded. "Thank you." Another several seconds of hesitation. "Whatever you think of me, I'm not stupid. I know Andrew has always made more money than he should have in his position. I know some of his acquaintances have been questionable types at best. He always wanted more than he had and I never argued. I enjoyed our life, too. I … he has made enemies. I know this."

That was more words than she had spoken to him in one go since he had first arrived a week before. He wondered if it was deliberate. A conscious decision. Make her seem human, her and her son both. Make them less of a potential target and more like living, breathing, sentient beings. Make it harder to kill them.

Not that it would have made any true SCORPIA assassin even hesitate. But then, was it any different from what Alex himself was doing? He had made it a point to make himself seem like a human being beyond the SCORPIA operative, make him a trapped child with no choice, and make it much less likely she would try anything stupid and get him killed in the process.

Sullivan vanished into the bedroom and reappeared with a duffel bag. Alex watched as she packed – like Yassen had done to him, a nagging thought reminded him – and this time she seemed to have taken his instructions to heart.

The bag had room to spare when she was done. Cash, valuables, medicine, a change of clothes for all three of them, and short medical records with no names to identify them. Careful and meticulous, each in separate plastic bags and tightly closed. SCORPIA would supply their new identities later.

She looked a little lost with the bag in her hand. Alex took pity on her. "Jacob knows what he's supposed to do if we have to leave?"

"Mr Kelly explained it yesterday."

"Then that's all you need to do. Have practical shoes ready and the bag within reach. You might not need it, but it's better to be ready to leave in a hurry if we have to."

She nodded. Took a look at the mess around her, where the four suitcases and piles of things were scattered. Seemed to decide it could wait a little, because instead she sighed softly and sat down in the couch.

"You have done very well with Jacob."

Alex wasn't sure why she brought it up, but he went with it. "Thank you, ma'am."

"I was not comfortable with you here with us. I'm still not. I'm not comfortable with a murderer in my home, around my son, and certainly not one of your age. Mr Kelly was right, though. You're not a child. Merely a slightly smaller adult."

Alex shrugged. "That's what SCORPIA considers me, at least."

Another nod. Based on the way she watched him, a little cautious and with a small frown, he was almost sure she wondered what he had been like at Jacob's age. If circumstances could have turned her coddled son into a trained killer as well.

"I've always tried to protect him. Jacob. He doesn't need to know about all of this."

About his father. About the money. About SCORPIA.

"Bit too late for that, I think," Alex pointed out. He didn't mention Jacob's eavesdropping tendencies. It wasn't really any of her business. If they were careless when they talked, that was their problem. Alex hated being kept in the dark. Jacob obviously shared that sentiment. "Your son isn't stupid, ma'am. He probably suspected already."

Sullivan's lips thinned into a displeased expression but she didn't argue. Maybe she couldn't. Maybe she didn't want to. Maybe she didn't like having her parenting critiqued by a fifteen-year-old assassin. Whatever the reason, it wasn't Alex's problem.

He got up and headed to Jacob's room again, his job done for now. He paused for a moment at the door. "One thing to consider, ma'am. I was fourteen when SCORPIA recruited me. Not even a year older than Jacob is now. Not everyone thinks kids are stupid."

He probably shouldn't have said it, but the expression on her face made it all worth it.

* * *

Next: The Sword of Damocles


	13. The Sword of Damocles

A/N 1: And with the end of Alex's first real SCORPIA operation, we're well past 60k word. I may have slightly underestimated how long this thing will turn out to be. This sucker's going to be a long 'un, I suspect.

* * *

The first sign that things were about to go wrong came Monday evening when Alex got the daily updates on the operation.

"They have increased surveillance on Sullivan at his work office." Yassen glanced at Alex. "The ISD agent you spotted has apparently found a new career as a maintenance assistant, conveniently within the same building."

That explained why Alex had only seen the CIA guy, then.

"We're sure it's a joint operation, then?"

"Almost certain," Yassen confirmed. "And they will strike soon."

Alex thought it over for a few seconds. "Better to arrest him at work when he won't have the chance to put security into place for the night? Less risk of his family being a problem, too."

Yassen just nodded, but there was faint approval in his expression. Crux looked pleased, too. They looked vaguely like a pair of proud parents. It was a little creepy.

"The orders from Mr Chase and Nile stand," Crux said. "Kill him if he gets taken in. We can't do much to delay them now, it's mostly up to chance, but noon should be good enough. Once he's in police custody, we'll have to wrap up everything before they poke around too much."

Sullivan would be dead by then, Alex knew, but there were other contacts out there that SCORPIA would like to keep out of the whole mess and make use of again later. They would have to work fast, all of them. Get the family out so they couldn't be used for intel, clean out the apartment, dispose of all evidence in the Owens' house, and remove any and all trace that they were ever there.

Another entry on the long list of things that had never been a problem with MI6, since they had been mostly on the right side of the law. He had never really considered before just how much evidence he had left behind on his missions. How big of a trail that could be traced back to him. Not until SCORPIA had taught him just how many ways the various intelligence and law enforcement agencies had available to find someone.

Tomorrow was going to suck. Alex just knew it.

* * *

The second sign that things were about to go wrong came Tuesday morning, barely two hours after Sullivan had left.

" _Alex?"_ Nile's voice sounded tinny through the small earpiece. _"Tell Mrs Sullivan to call her husband."_

Nile didn't expect an answer, so Alex didn't give one. Instead he looked up from the textbook to focus on the woman in question. "Ma'am? Mr Kelly wants you to call your husband."

He stressed the name slightly and hoped she would get the reference. It took all of half a second for the penny to drop and her to pale slightly even as she picked up her phone and called him.

Jacob paused, too, pencil still in hand.

Alex didn't reassure her that the man was fine. Frankly, he didn't have a clue. He thought he understood what was going on, though. _Your presence will be enough_ , Nile had said. Andrew Sullivan had tried to challenge SCORPIA. What the man would see would be Nile make a request and Evelyn Sullivan complying seconds later. That meant that Nile's threat was legitimate. As far as Sullivan was concerned, all Nile had to do was make one phone call to reach Alex, and his wife and son would be at the mercy of a SCORPIA assassin. The phone call to Sullivan himself was a pointed reminder of how easily Nile controlled his subordinate.

Alex had asked no questions, merely carried out the order like any good operative.

"Are you all right?" Evelyn asked, low and urgent. "Alexander told me I needed to call."

Alex didn't hear the other side of the conversation, but Evelyn's expression eased a little. "All right. Just … be careful. I love you."

She still looked a little worried when she hung up afterwards but not as much. Sullivan must have found an excuse that sounded marginally believable.

"He just wanted proof that he would be able to contact us if anything happened and we had to leave."

 _That works._ Alex shrugged. "That's why they put me here, ma'am. It wouldn't be very good protection if we didn't have reliable communication."

"You don't wear a headset," Jacob pointed out.

" _Jacob._ " His mother sounded more displeased at the implied rudeness than the question itself. She probably wondered, too.

"Surgical implant," Alex lied. Not that he thought it would matter, but it was the principle of things. "Tracker, too. Even if something happens and I can't answer, they can still find me."

Reassurance and threat all in one. He had started to learn to speak SCORPIA. Mrs Sullivan seemed to have picked up on that, too, because she didn't look entirely happy but she left the matter alone.

The silence when Alex and Jacob returned to their lesson felt awkward and just a bit heavier than it had done just an hour before.

Nile had told him that his presence would be enough. Alex still expected the order to come – _kill them both_ – but it never did. He wasn't sure what he would do if it did. Refuse, probably. Deal with the consequences. Nile knew he wouldn't kill a child.

The day dragged on, but Alex's tension never eased. If anything, the prolonged silence just made it worse. He had no idea of what was happening outside. What the situation was. What Yassen, or Nile, or Crux were doing. He just had to trust they had things under control.

Then, in the early afternoon, Nile's voice cut through the quiet sounds of the apartment again. _"Sullivan was just brought in for questioning. He is about to die in police custody. An unfortunate case of the Internal Security Department being a little too eager in their duties. Evacuate Mrs Sullivan and her son and destroy all evidence. We have you under surveillance – a car will meet you. You have ten minutes. They will come for her next."_

About to die in police custody, probably from a sniper's bullet. Yassen Gregorovich did not miss.

Alex pressed the microphone on his wrist and used it for the first time in the Sullivans' company. "Got it."

Plans had already been made. All he had to do was carry them out. Alex got up, and Jacob got up with him. Mrs Sullivan had stopped her slow clean-up of the many things she had tried to fit in the suitcases the day before.

He wondered how much he should tell them. Decided pretty fast that 'as little as possible' was the order of the day. "Ma'am, we have to leave immediately. Your husband was just brought in for questioning. They'll come here next. We have to be elsewhere when they do."

"Andrew -"

"SCORPIA will get him out." Blatant lie, not that Alex cared right now. He didn't have time to deal with their reactions. Neither had moved an inch. "Jacob, get your bag and put your shoes on."

His voice was harsher than he had intended. The boy obeyed instantly. His mother looked a bit more dubious. Alex took the few moments when Jacob was in his room to stress the seriousness of the situation and hopefully keep her from trying anything stupid.

"I know you wonder if you should take your chances with them, ma'am. They have evidence, or they wouldn't have targeted your husband. SCORPIA is classified as a terrorist organisation. You will be assumed to be an accomplice, and they will arrest you, too. Best case, they'll lock you both up for years. Worst case, the death penalty. Jacob will be an orphan. My orders are to get you out of here to safety at any cost."

The words seemed to get through to her. She nodded jerkily and picked up the duffel bag she had packed.

"Get Jacob, put practical shoes on, wait by the door. Don't open it, and don't step outside. I need to make sure they won't track us."

She looked like she was about to argue, but Alex had already emptied his own backpack on the floor and shoved aside the books in favour of weapons. The sight was enough to make her nod sharply again and do as instructed.

Nine minutes. Alex strapped the guns into place, slipped the two hand grenades in his pockets, and grabbed the pack of small explosives. If he had done his calculations right – and checked by Yassen, they would be – it would be enough to destroy any evidence in the apartment and cause a flash fire in the process, but it shouldn't be enough to bring the building down on top of them.

Several miles away, someone was doing the same to the Owens' home. Clear it out and remove all evidence. It was a rental, Crux had told him. Someone definitely wasn't getting their deposit back

A full quarter of the small clumps of explosive went into Andrew Sullivan's office. They wanted to make sure. Half of them took care of the living room, with the last quarter divided between the remaining rooms. If nothing else, it should erase anything of value in the office and any trace of Alex himself.

He grabbed the things he had already marked as something of possible interest, too. The laptop and a handful of USB drives, all of which vanished into his backpack. The surveillance would stay. If anything survived the explosion, it would be too wrecked to get anything useful from.

Seven and a half minute.

A tinny voice cut through the silence again, Crux this time instead of Nile. _"The police just arrived. Four officers only so far. You may have to fight your way out. I'll keep you updated."_

Alex cursed, low and vicious, before he replied. "Got it."

Faster than expected. Mrs Sullivan looked like she was about to ask, about his words and the explosives both. Alex stopped her before she could. "Company."

He set the timer for three minutes and slipped past them into the hallway. Two shots took out the hidden surveillance cameras. One more took out the legitimate camera. Alex didn't care about the noise. They already knew he was there.

Alex turned back to his two charges. Mrs Sullivan looked a lot paler. Jacob looked wide-eyed and clenched her hand tightly. Alex supposed the gunshots hammered home the situation a lot better than words did.

"We're talking the stairs. Stay behind me."

He stopped only long enough to check they were actually following him before he hurried down the hallway. He could have moved a lot faster on his own. A lot less cautious, too. With the two of them along …

The staircase was clear, but Alex knew it was a short reprieve. Eleven floors, with an out-of-shape kid and said kid's only marginally more fit mother. The cops would arrive long before the three of them could reach the ground floor, and they moved a lot faster than Alex's two charges did, too. He still started the descent and tried to time his pace to the two of them.

" _All four heading for the staircase. Security is about to cut power to the lifts. They know you're armed and have called for reinforcements."_

Of course they did, and of course they would. Alex cursed again. He glanced back and saw Mrs Sullivan purse her lips.

No sound from the bottom of the staircase. He knew it was close, though. They knew he was armed and likely that he was associated with SCORPIA. If they had watched him shoot the cameras, they knew his aim was good, too. If the three of them went up, they would be trapped. The lifts were out. With him armed and Sullivan assassinated, they would probably shoot to kill the moment he fired on them, and the only way out was through them.

Adrenaline and Yassen's lessons took over. Pushed aside the qualms and horror, the same way they had when he had watched the boat through the scope of his sniper rifle. It hadn't come to that yet, but he knew it was a very real risk.

Somewhere far below, the door that separated the parking basement from the rest of the staircase slammed open. Someone shouted. Alex ignored it.

Five floors above them, the explosives went off with a roar only barely muted by walls and distance. The building trembled. A sharp smell of smoke forced its way into the staircase and triggered the high-pitched scream of the fire alarm. Evelyn paled and gripped her son tightly. A second later, the fire sprinklers started as well.

Four minutes left. Most of the people in the building were above them, but any second the staircase would fill with people.

More shouting. Loud footsteps. Maybe that would make the cops a little more cautious. The door to the staircase on the floor below slammed open and someone hurried down the stairs. Several more people followed immediately after. Alex heard identical sounds both further up and down in the building. People clearly took an explosion a little more serious than the average fire alarm.

The urgency and the explosion made the Sullivans move faster, too. Crux's voice cut through the chaos again.

" _They've stopped their approach. They're waiting for reinforcements before they go after you. You got another couple of minutes to work with."_

Alex heard a scream – someone had probably spotted the armed cops coming the other way – but with the stampede Alex wasn't surprised the officers would stay on the ground floor and wait for backup rather than come after them further up and take their chances with an armed suspect that had just blown up an apartment. There was nowhere else to go, after all. Alex appreciated it, too. He didn't want to have to shoot his way out in the middle of a crowd.

" _ETA for the fire department is two minutes, two and a half for police reinforcements."_

By the second floor they were drenched and a number of people had pushed their way past them. Since Alex heard the steady stream of people hurry out and hadn't seen a cluster of people stuck, he assumed the officers let anyone pass who wasn't one of their targets.

That was fine. Alex didn't intend to get out that way, anyway. He opened door to the second floor and pushed the Sullivans inside.

Alex shot the lock of the first apartment he saw and kicked the door open. It was empty, like he had expected. Someone might be watching the cameras in the hallway but Alex planned on being far away by the time they got someone there.

Two minutes. One floor down. From that height, the drop from the balcony onto soft ground was manageable even for untrained civilians, and the coast was clear for maybe another minute or so.

Mrs Sullivan caught on almost immediately. "I can't -"

Then she caught sight of his gun and the billowing smoke from their apartment high above and seemed to reconsider. Jacob's expression was grim. "It's all right from this height?"

"It's fine. Just don't tense when you land."

Jacob took his word for it and climbed over the railing and jumped before he could change his mind. He landed a little awkwardly but unharmed as far as Alex could see.

Mrs Sullivan looked extremely unhappy but followed suit. A bit more stiffly, and her grip on the rail was enough to turn her fingers white, but she jumped, too. Alex was just grateful she had practical shoes on and not her normal heels.

Alex followed them easily. Both of them seemed unharmed, and he set off across the lawn in a run, just slow enough that they could keep up. They had to get away. They would be spotted any second.

One minute. Crux's surveillance did its job, because a familiar white Audi took a sharp turn around the corner to the edge of the lawn. The driver was Nile is his equally familiar disguise, and Alex had no idea he would ever be so relieved to see the man.

Nile drove off the second they were inside, soaking wet and dripping water all over the expensive seats.

" _I didn't mention her husband is dead, just that he's in police custody,"_ Alex reported in Russian from his place on the front passenger seat. He noticed the doors had all locked the moment they took off.

" _Sensible,_ " Nile agreed in the same language, then switched to English. "Good job, Alex."

" _Mr Kelly!"_ Mrs Sullivan demanded from behind him. She looked pale and harried, but she had obviously found her tongue again. "I demand you tell me what is going on!"

"At the safe-house," Nile replied calmly. "I promise, I will explain everything then."

* * *

Their destination was an unfamiliar apartment in a middle-class neighbourhood. The Sullivans vanished into Nile's office with the man himself. A guard took up watch by the door.

Alex found Yassen in the living room where he watched the streets outside. The Russian nodded slightly at him. Alex nodded back. There was a towel and a change of clothes in a bag waiting for him but nothing else. With the adrenaline gone and the reality of cold, wet, clinging clothes in an air conditioned room set in, Alex didn't even bother to leave the room to change. He just wanted to be warm and dry again. He had lost his modesty around Yassen a long time ago.

He removed his earpiece and the microphone. Both were probably ruined by water now. The latex on his hands had started to peel, probably from a combination of wear and tear and the water from the fire sprinklers. Alex resisted the urge to peel off the rest of it.

It was silent for a long time. Alex thought of the two people in Nile's office. Of Jacob and Evelyn. There was dark suspicion in his mind that had grown increasingly heavy during the drive. Sullivan was dead, but his wife knew an awful lot about what he had been up to, as well as SCORPIA's involvement. Even Jacob knew too much to be trusted. Too much to risk it.

"They're dead, aren't they?"

Yassen glanced at him. "Sullivan made himself too much of a liability. There will be a car accident on the way to the airport. There will be no survivors."

Alex swallowed. "A bag with cash and valuables and a set of fake identities will be pretty damning evidence."

Yassen didn't answer, not that he needed to. SCORPIA had its scapegoats in the Sullivans, then. They were going to kill a thirteen-year-old kid because his father got tangled up with the wrong people and didn't know when to keep his mouth shut. A nice kid, a little bitter and sheltered, but innocent in a way Alex probably hadn't ever really been, and SCORPIA would kill him. Alex had known it was a possibility, but that was if Andrew Sullivan hadn't followed orders. SCORPIA had a deal with the Sullivans. The rest of the family was supposed to go free.

There was the wild urge to do something, consequence be damned, to warn them for all that he knew it would do nothing, and then Yassen's voice cut through the sudden, brief burst of adrenaline.

" _Alex._ "

The man's easy stance hadn't changed, but Alex had been around him enough to see the small signs. The sharp attention and slight tension of muscle. If Alex moved, if he as much as looked like he was about to open his mouth unwisely, Yassen would stop him before he took even a step. Before he managed to get a single word out. Yassen had free hands to train him however he saw fit. No one would say a word if Alex ended up unconscious or screaming in pain. No one would even look twice. They would just assume it was punishment for something or another that Yassen had saved up for when Alex's part of the operation was over.

Alex closed his eyes for a second. Nodded and yielded to the reprimand. Nothing he could do now. Maybe at the apartment, maybe if they had never got into the car in the first place, but SCORPIA would still have found them. Neither of the two had any experience with being on the run. They had the financial resources but no idea of how to use them.

Yassen accepted his unspoken surrender for what it was, and the faint tension in his body eased again.

Yassen, Alex quite suddenly realised, was under a lot of stress, too. It was a weird realisation. He had always seen Yassen as cold, collected, and incapable of mistakes, but he knew on some level he couldn't explain that it was true.

Yassen knew Alex. He knew his plans, knew his personality, knew his way of thinking. He knew how close Alex was to doing something incredibly stupid, and he knew what the consequences would be if he allowed it to happen. At the very least Alex would be killed, and he knew Yassen had worked hard to avoid that. Even more likely, Alex's betrayal would mean the death of both of them, because SCORPIA would blame Yassen for not catching on to his deception.

One moment of inattention combined with one impulsive move on Alex's part … the tension made sense now.

When Alex spoke again, he was careful to keep his voice quiet and even and offer no threat or challenge.

"Will you at least tell me what was so important he had to stay alive?"

The operation was over. Whatever had happened, it was too later to stop it now, and Alex wanted to know. Wanted to know what was worth the lives of four civilians so far and however much it had cost to call in Yassen – and Alex himself by proxy – at such short notice.

Another glance. "Information. The complete financial records of a number of large banks stretching back years and decades. Every client, every transaction, every loan, every stock bought and sold, and every deal they ever made, legal, illegal, or merely highly questionable. Everything will be released to the public. With Sullivan's position and contacts, it became possible to exploit weaknesses in their security."

"Freedom of information? How altruistic." Alex couldn't quite keep the sarcasm at bay.

"Destruction of trust," Yassen corrected. "The financial sector is about trust. You trust a currency will remain stable. You trust the stock market not to crash. You trust that your dealings, your company secrets, your financial records all remain safe. If you remove that trust, it will severe damage the banking sector. Clients will move elsewhere. A number of competitors will be ready with generous offers to help the unfortunate victims move on. To reassure them of their utmost emphasis on security and confidentiality. All that without even taking into account the contents of the records themselves. Authorities in a number of places will be busy. A number of people, I imagine, will be persuaded to step down from their positions. Some will kill themselves. Some will be assisted in making that decision."

Nile reappeared from his office. He led the Sullivans to the door where two of SCORPIA's local guards waited. They exchanged a few, low word. Then the two of them left, neither looking back. They both had clean, dry clothes on, but they seemed to be in shock. Jacob looked like he had been crying. Alex assumed Nile had told them about Andrew Sullivan, then.

He had no chance to speak with them. He wasn't sure what he would even have said. Warned them? It would have done nothing with Nile, Yassen, and the guards there, and that was assuming Yassen didn't step in immediately. Alex had seen the slight shift in the man's stance when Nile and the Sullivans reappeared. Coming from Yassen, that was a clear promise of immediate violence if Alex as much as breathed a little too loudly.

On the street below, mother and son got into the white Audi. Alex looked away from the window as the car left.

"SCORPIA," Yassen continued like nothing had happened, "was paid well to ensure Singapore would no longer be among the largest financial centres in the world."

If Yassen was right, they had succeeded, too. Operation Damocles. It was appropriate. What SCORPIA had done once, they could do again. They had just shifted one of the centres of financial power. Whoever had paid for it, SCORPIA could just as easily do the same to them in the future. All it would take would be someone with enough money to spare and the contacts to see it happen.

Nile approached them. He still had his disguise on, but his motions had shifted from the middle-aged man he had pretended to be and to the lethal grace of the trained assassin he actually was.

"You did exceptionally well, Alex. A credit to SCORPIA and Cossack both. Mr Chase wants to see you both before you leave. Crux has the rest of clean-up in hand. She will be by shortly with the most pressing necessities."

Yassen nodded slightly and didn't seem to care one way or the other.

Alex wasn't surprised. 'Clean-up' meant that the grand total of his possessions right now were the clothes and weapons he carried and the bank account information he had memorised. Everything else had been disposed of. He had expected it. He imagined he would never have much in the sense of permanent possessions again. Things he could allow himself to get attached to. Things that couldn't just be disposed of if they became a liability.

Just like SCORPIA's own people, if he ever allowed himself to get attached to someone. The thought tasted bitter and reminded him vividly of Jacob. He should have done something, even if he had no idea of what. Nile had kept his word and hadn't made Alex kill them. It didn't make him feel any better about the whole thing.

They might already be dead, both of them. If Alex turned on the traffic report, they might already have news of an accident that involved a white Audi. If they weren't still busy with the apartment that had just blown up, at least.

Alex forced himself to focus on other things, like the questions that still nagged him a little.

"Mr Kelly might have some issues with the authorities, too," he pointed out, referring to Nile's disguise. "He's spent an awful lot of time around the Sullivans, and they might just have him on camera as the driver of the getaway car."

"Mr Kelly has spent the entire day teaching, as he is paid to. There have never been less than thirty witnesses around him at any point during today's unfortunate events. They will bring him in for questioning, certainly. We will likely not be able to use him as a disguise anymore. He is a sensible man and a good liar, however, and knows not to talk. He will be appalled his identity has been abused in such a way. They will have no evidence, and so they can prove nothing. They will watch him for a while, and then they will give it up as a lost cause. He will be given a suitable bonus and SCORPIA will resume its other business with him." Nile sounded pragmatic about the whole thing. He was probably used to it.

Nile's phone buzzed. He patted Alex briefly on the shoulder like a proud older brother or parent, then left to handle … whatever it was he just got called away for. Clean-up, maybe. Or the next step of Operation Damocles.

Alex and Yassen spent the wait in silence. Neither spoke. Nile's guard had left with him, and the two guards by the door never moved.

His eyes stung. The latex on his hands itched. His clothes smelled new and unfamiliar. He wanted to cry but he couldn't afford to, not now.

Half an hour later, the door opened and Crux appeared with a guard of her own. Guard and designated pack mule. He dragged two suitcases along with him, presumably the necessities Nile had mentioned. Crux's looks had already changed. She was a redhead now, with slightly longer, straight hair, and she looked older. Mid-forties was Alex's guess. Only a week and a half spent in close proximity and enough training in disguises let him recognise her at all.

She nodded at Yassen in a respectful greeting, then turned her attention to Alex.

When she spoke, her voice was still the same as when they had been alone with no one listening in. Alex knew it was only a matter of time before she shifted that, too. "I watched your escape. Over the balcony was a bit of a surprise, but it shouldn't have been, I think. You can't risk a shoot-out with two civilians along that you have to keep alive." She smiled. "Very good job, Alex."

Keep them alive just long enough to kill them later. Alex forced the thought aside.

"Thank you," he said instead. "For the help, too," he added with a small gesture towards his left ear where the earpiece had been.

"Not every job comes with the luxury of support, but it's always nice when it's there," Crux replied. She gestured for the guard to bring over one of the suitcases. "I brought some new clothes along for you. You'll want to change before you leave."

The original change of clothes Alex had been given was a plain t-shirt and jeans. The clothes Crux pulled out of the suitcase now were a pair of black slacks in a feminine cut, tight briefs, a padded bra, and a blue blouse. The jacket and pair of shoes that Alex caught a glimpse of as well were distinctively feminine-looking to him, too.

He wasn't even surprised when Crux handed him a make-up purse along with the familiar brunette wig and took his – Alexander's – watch in return.

"I mentioned your new disguise to Mr Chase," she said by way of explanation. "He wants to see it in person. Now show me how well you've paid attention."

An hour later, Alex had become Aleksandra. After the soak from the fire sprinklers, he'd had to dry his hair properly first before he could do anything else. He removed all of the piercings, put in blue contacts, and did his make-up with the care and focus that Crux had drilled into him. He couldn't afford to draw any suspicions. With the wig carefully in place and with the new clothes along with a small purse, he looked very convincingly female. He could have passed for Yassen and Crux's teenage daughter easily. Even he had to admit that Crux had done a spectacular job in the time she'd had with him.

Crux smiled fondly. "Just like that. It was a pleasure to work with you, Orion. Bring your suitcase along. The car has arrived and Cossack is already waiting."

When they left the apartment, even his walk was different. Alexander Owen was gone, replaced by Aleksandra Kurbatova, an American national of Russian descent. His passport under the identity had been prepared several days prior, the moment Crux had decided he would be able to pull off the disguise in time for their departure.

* * *

Brendan Chase was Australian and former ASIS. He had kept his accent, though Alex was sure the man could switch it off if necessary. Like Kurst, it might just have been a matter of pride that he didn't.

He had supervised Operation Damocles from a large apartment in the central area of Singapore. From the broad windows, Alex could spot several of the banks that could very well be targets of the operation.

There were three large envelopes on the large desk, though only one of them had the familiar black tape with the scorpion that Alex had already learned to associate with assignments.

Chase looked pleased when they arrived. Alex supposed the operation hadn't gone completely wrong, then. Nile wasn't there, but Alex wasn't surprised. There were a lot of loose ends to tie up still and someone had to handle it.

"Good job, all of you. Bit of a close shave, but we got what we needed." He picked up the envelope with the tape. "Crux, your new assignment. You're needed in Kuala Lumpur. We feel it best to keep you out of Singapore for a few months."

"Yes, sir." Her voice was smooth and professional, and different enough from Joanne Owen that she sounded like an entirely different person. It made Alex wonder what she actually looked like. How much of it had been a disguise.

Crux gave Alex another smile and left, dismissed without any need for further orders.

Chase turned his attention to Yassen and Alex instead. "Cossack, beautiful work as always. One of the targets had a bounty on him. The reward has been transferred."

A slight nod was all the acknowledgement Yassen gave. Chase didn't seem to expect anything else.

"Now, Orion ..." Chase reached out and touched Alex's chin to turn his head to one side, then the other. Finally he let go again. Alex felt a little like he was in the middle of a weirder-than-usual beauty pageant.

"That is very well done," he admitted. "Very, very well. And for a week and a half of short lessons? Exceptional work. I think Crux might be due for a bonus. Let me see your walk and body language."

Definitely a beauty pageant, Alex decided. He complied, anyway, and did a walk to the end of the office and back again. He was careful to keep Crux's lessons in mind, to mimic her walk and add the small bit of sway to his hips.

"Exceptional work, indeed," Chase repeated, this time with clear satisfaction. "All you need now is enough practice to make it second nature."

Alex stopped next to Yassen again. "Thank you, sir."

Brendan Chase didn't have Kurst's vindictive sadism, but that didn't make him any less dangerous. It paid to stay on his good side, as it did with all of the board members.

"The best way to use a disguise like that is to completely disassociate it from your normal identity," Chase continued. "You're familiar with Alice in Wonderland?"

"Down the rabbit hole," Alex said. "Yes, sir." On some days, he really sympathised with Alice, too.

Chase smiled, wide and sharp like he knew what Alex was thinking. Maybe he did. "Excellent. Like this, you will be Cheshire. Cub belonged to MI6, body and soul. Cheshire will be SCORPIA's. Two distinct operatives. With some luck, it will take a while before the connection between Orion and Cheshire becomes common knowledge. You will speak of this to no one."

"No, sir."

His point made, Chase handed them the remaining two envelopes.

"We're still negotiating your next assignment, but it's a government job. It's always convenient to already have our operatives in place before the deal is finalised for those assignments. Some governments get tempted to keep a closer watch on their borders when they have bought SCORPIA's services." His smile took on a decidedly vindictive edge. "We make sure the inconvenience is reflected in the pay. You leave for Miami tonight. You have been given a week of downtime. I assume it won't be a hardship in that sort of place."

Based on the thickness of the envelopes, at least there might be more information already than they had been given about Operation Damocles in the first place.

It was an obvious dismissal, and Alex followed Yassen in silence as they left. They would spend a few hours in a safe-house and read up on the background of their new assignment before they had to leave for the airport.

Alex wondered if the car accident would have been cleaned up by then. He wondered if they would drive along the same route. Then he forcefully pushed the thought aside to deal with later, when he wasn't somewhere hunted by any number of people who wanted him in prison or worse.

Alex Rider left Singapore as Yassen's teenage daughter. The authorities were hunting a fifteen-year-old British boy, not a sixteen-year-old Russian-American girl.

They took off shortly before midnight. The flight was over Zurich to Miami and took just over twenty-four full hours in the air.

Yassen looked only mildly tired when they finally made their way through Miami Airport. Alex was so bleary-eyed he was close to seeing double. He had redone his make-up shortly before they landed, and that had only marginally improved on things. It had been first class again. This time he was sure it had been on purpose, to give him some privacy, but he had still barely slept.

Half an hour here and there, forty-five minutes at the most, and he would find himself woken up by Yassen right as the nightmares started to take hold.

Apparently exhaustion from long-haul flights was a lot different than exhaustion from actual hard work. He had barely dreamt in Singapore. Either things were catching up with him, or twenty-seven hours on two flights and an airport did not agree with him.

"I need you to keep yourself together for one more day," Yassen told him quietly right before they arrived at the hotel that had been booked for them. "You will have nightmares tonight, there is little to do about it, but you need to hold it together. Tomorrow, I have made arrangements for us to stay somewhere quiet and isolated. I promised you a week. You will get it. Until then, you must keep yourself together."

Alex wasn't sure he could do that, but he didn't have much of a choice. He was going to break down sooner or later, and he knew it, and he didn't want to do it where someone might watch. Where SCORPIA might keep an eye on his every move. One more day. He could do that.

The hotel had a gym. Yassen spent three hours there pushing Alex to physical exhaustion to match the mental one before he allowed him to go to bed.

It didn't keep the nightmares away completely, but it was good enough.

 _One more day._

It would have to be.

* * *

The first data leaks had appeared by the time Alex and Yassen landed in Miami. Two at first, another one four hours later, and further on at random intervals with no rhyme or reason to them.

By the time the last records had been sent out three days later, seven of ten largest banks in Singapore and a dozen of the smaller ones had seen their complete financial records leaked, some going back twenty years or more. Every client, every account, every transaction.

It took less than a day for the first long, in-depth article to appear, citing a number of questionable connections and deals from the records. It took three days for the first arrest to be made based on the information, and two hours past that for the first suspicious death to happen.

A number of potential suspects behind the leak were named, though most seemed to agree it had to be an foreign government behind it based on the sheer scale of the attack.

Alex was sure SCORPIA's name would be mentioned in secured offices and classified briefings. In the public information, however, the name would never once appear.

* * *

A/N 2: Many thank yous to TheSilverHunt3r for the suggestion of Cheshire as Alex's codename. It fit his female alter ego perfectly :)

Next: Alex gets his downtime


	14. License to Chill

A/N 1: As always, thank you for reading and for your reviews, and I hope you enjoy the fic.

A/N 2: Also, changed the summary slightly since 70k-ish words in, it's probably overdue.

* * *

Alex woke up well before six. A few hours of sleep had helped, but the nightmares had still been there. Every time he woke up enough to escape one, another one had been lined up and waiting.

Yassen was already awake. Alex didn't ask if it was because of the man's own need for very little sleep or because Alex's sleep had been so restless. Neither spoke, but there was a silent agreement that it would be a good time for workout.

Alex felt fragile in a way he hadn't since Nice. Like the world was just a little off and his emotions a little too unstable. Like his thoughts didn't sit right. Workout the evening before had eased it a little, forced him to focus on something else. Workout that morning did the same, but … less.

One more day, Yassen had said. Alex could break down later today if he needed it. Based on his nightmares and the raw emotions he couldn't quite ignore any longer, it was not a moment too soon.

Yassen had promised a week of peace and privacy. Alex had wondered how he intended to manage that in the middle of something like the Miami metropolitan area. The answer turned out to be a sixty-foot monster of a yacht that waited for them in one of the marinas that morning.

Alex just stared for several seconds. Then he spotted the name and laughed in spite of everything.

" _License to Chill?_ "

Yassen didn't respond but Alex thought he looked faintly amused, too.

It was a huge boat up close. Huge and expensive-looking, and surrounded by a number of boats that were just as big – or bigger, in some cases. Alex didn't want to know what those things had cost brand new.

Yassen had promised peace and privacy, which had to mean no one but the two of them. Which meant … "You can sail that thing yourself?" Alex wasn't even sure why he was surprised. It was Yassen Gregorovich. He was a skilled helicopter pilot already. Why shouldn't he be able to handle a boat as well? Even one that large.

"I have a yacht in the Mediterranean." First time Alex had heard about that, too, but he supposed it made sense as well. It was an easy way to travel without the inconvenience of airport security. "It would take too long for it to arrive to be of use in this case, so I chartered one for the week. I will teach you the basics as well."

SCORPIA's top operatives were well paid. It wasn't until then that Alex really started to grasp just how well paid someone of Yassen's skills would be.

The yacht was white accented with black. Different enough from the one in Singapore that Alex didn't immediately see a blood-stained deck and dead bodies. The memory was there but … muted. For now.

The water itself wouldn't be a problem, at least. He had been scuba diving again within a week of his extended stay with Dr Three. It hadn't been pleasant when he had been completely submerged again for the first time, but he had managed. His hands had been unrestricted and the water had been pleasantly warm. Different enough from Dr Three's sessions that he was all right with it.

Yassen went over the last details with the company he had chartered it - her – from. Alex spent the time exploring their home for the next week or so. Plenty of room for guests. They could have a cabin each and room to spare. There were also numerous instruments and enough buttons, switches, and knobs to put a space shuttle to shame.

They bought enough supplies to last the week and hauled it all on board. That included another change in wardrobe for Alex, who was back to his male self again. Yassen then spent several hours going over every inch of the yacht as Alex watched and listened to the methodical explanations.

"We will anchor somewhere or take turns sleeping," Yassen said. "I will teach you to sail her. We will need to refuel, but we will spend as much time as possible at sea."

Alex honestly looked forward to that. It was a sleek, luxurious machine, and he wondered how she would hold up at sea.

They set off in the early afternoon. The twin diesel engines rumbled to life, and Yassen steered her out of the marina and into the waters surrounding Miami. He kept up a running commentary about the various instruments all the while and was careful to explain everything he did.

It was a lot of information but Alex didn't mind. For once, it wasn't information intended to kill someone with.

"Straight on out and a little to the south is the Bahamas," Yassen said as the blue ocean stretched endlessly in front of them. "Cuba is directly to the south of us. Nassau is a possibility, but we would have to cross the Gulf Stream, and I would prefer to have you a little more familiar with handling a boat before we do that."

The yacht cut smoothly through the water. The sun hammered down on them, and the sky was deep blue. Alex felt a little lighter already, away from the crowds and the sounds of the city. Far enough away that he wouldn't have to worry about being Orion and the brutal pressure that came with SCORPIA's attention. "So where are we going?"

"South," Yassen answered. "The Florida Keys. Sheltered and with good diving opportunities. We will look more closely at the assignment when the final details fall into place. Until then, I promised you downtime for your cooperation."

"So SCORPIA lets us bum around on a luxury yacht for a week?" That sounded like a suspiciously nice thing to do. Alex sensed a set-up. Yassen had said he would arrange it, sure, but Alex was still a little surprised that SCORPIA had agreed.

"We were given the downtime with the implicit understanding you would be kept busy."

And there it was. There was always an ulterior motive. Alex had learned that a long time ago. "Too busy to think too much about things?" he guessed.

Yassen didn't answer but then, he didn't really need to.

The paradise-feel of the whole place – yacht, sea, and sun – darkened a little at that. SCORPIA knew he struggled. Alex hadn't really expected to be able to keep it from them, and definitely not after Dr Steiner had spent so much time poking his brain, but it was still uncomfortable. Some weird mix of unsettled and furious.

"Is that their usual method?" He sounded spiteful even to himself. "Someone still has some morals left, so make them kill until it's second nature and then keep them busy until they get over it or break down completely?"

"Most students of Malagosto do not have issues with murder," Yassen answered calmly. The reminder sent a chill down Alex's back. "They would not be there otherwise. SCORPIA has no use for reluctant assassins. Some are fine with the idea in theory but falter when it comes to actual assignments. Those are usually eliminated. Malagosto has a careful selection process. A failed student means the loss of a significant investment."

"But they still accepted me." Alex wondered how much had gone on behind the scenes that he would never know about. He knew Yassen had argued for him to the board but that was all.

"Sometimes the risk is worth it. Sometimes they will accept unusual students. Some pay off. Some do not."

The easy way he said it sent another chill through Alex. It was a very clinical way to describe someone's death.

"Students like me."

"Students like you," Yassen agreed. "And like Nile and myself. We were all very young but had qualifications that made it worth the additional risk. Sometimes students that are older than most. Sometimes students from unusual backgrounds."

They were silent for a while and just enjoyed the open water. Then Yassen glanced at Alex. Something about the slight movement was enough to make Alex pay close attention to his words.

"Ash, your godfather, works for ASIS. He is former MI6. He has been a double agent for SCORPIA since shortly after you were born," he said, quite deliberately. "His background was a little unorthodox but SCORPIA chose to take the risk."

There was a lot in that sentence Alex wanted to ask about. _Needed_ to ask about. ASIS? That was the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. MI6's twin in Australia.

"I didn't even know I _had_ a godfather. No one ever mentioned him."

"He left for Australia when you were four. I understand he visited occasionally to see you before then. I doubt you would remember. He was your father's friend and former partner in MI6. He was the last person to see your parents alive. He was in the airport to see them off."

That was a surprising amount of information, and not all of it was strictly related to Alex's comment. There was something about the way Yassen had said it …

SCORPIA double agent. Last person to see them alive. A horrible suspicion settled in his mind.

"... How long has he been SCORPIA's?"

"Since three months after you were born," Yassen said quietly and never looked away from Alex.

Three months after Alex's birth. SCORPIA had just been betrayed by one MI6 agent. That they would accept another one, especially one who had worked with John Rider -

\- They would have had to be sure. Beyond a shadow of doubt.

"He killed them," Alex breathed. "He killed my parents."

"Placed the bomb on the plane and detonated it," Yassen replied. "I found out afterwards."

"Right. My godfather killed my parents." Alex just sat there for a while, staring at the horizon.

He had no one. There was Jack, but she was here in the States now with her family and hopefully safe. Beyond her … he had no one. His parents were dead, killed by his godfather. Ian Rider was dead, killed by the man sitting so calmly next to him. He had never seen his grandparents more than a few times.

Alex Rider was alone. Alex Rider had no one – no one but Yassen Gregorovich, who had his own plans and motives, a number of which Alex didn't agree with in the least.

Alex felt very, very lonely all of a sudden. He couldn't trust SCORPIA. He couldn't trust MI6. He couldn't trust the CIA. He had no right to risk Jack's life for something that had been his mistake, and his mistake alone.

He glanced at Yassen from the corner of his eye. Did he have anyone left? Alex doubted it. There had been Hunter … but Hunter had betrayed him. Hunter had been a double agent. Had Yassen allowed himself to trust anyone else since?

Alex wasn't Yassen. The thought of being all on his own, with no support, no trust, _no one_ … he couldn't. He had to trust _someone._ That someone might as well be Yassen, who had spared his life before. And if the time came when Yassen turned on him for whatever reason … Alex supposed he could accept that, too.

Yassen would call it a mistake to get attached. Alex couldn't find it in himself to care. He had to have someone. Anyone. Even if there was a lot he could never say out loud … there would be someone, at least. Someone he could share some things with.

"Have you ever met him? Ash?" Alex eventually asked.

"I put a knife through his stomach when I was nineteen." He continued at Alex's disbelieving stare. "He was MI6 at the time. They planned to fake Hunter's arrest and allow me to escape so they would be able to safely retrieve Hunter from SCORPIA. MI6 underestimated my abilities. I killed several of their agents. Ash never recovered fully. MI6 retired him from field work as a result of his injuries and the mistakes he made as the agent in charge. I believe that was the beginning of his defection to SCORPIA."

Alex tried to imagine the sort of person who would be so bitter and angry about that turn of events that he would be willing to wipe out an entire family, including his supposed friend and former partner, on SCORPIA's word. And for … what? Money? Revenge?

Suddenly Alex was glad he didn't remember the man.

"You needed to know," Yassen said. "It is unlikely you will cross paths with him, and certainly now as you are my permanent partner, but it is a sensible precaution. SCORPIA will not be able to use the connection in their favour now."

It would have been very easy for them to do so, too. Alex knew himself well enough for that. The godfather he didn't remember, the only family of sorts he had left, and the man just happened to be SCORPIA's, too, which would make him safe to get to know. Alex probably wouldn't have been told about anything beyond their relation until it suited the board. Bring up Ash's true role in Alex's life when it would do the most damage. Right when Alex started to trust him.

Part of him was amazed the man was even alive. Maybe SCORPIA had kept Ash away from Yassen. Maybe Yassen hadn't seen a point in finishing the job. Maybe Yassen just hadn't been able to risk the sort of attention he would draw if he had taken revenge for the death of a double agent.

Something else occurred to him.

"You're very talkative." Suspiciously so, in fact. Yassen could lecture for a long time about the skills Alex needed to learn. Casual talk, though, even for a purpose like now … "You're distracting me."

"You're unused to sailing. It will tire you out."

"So you plan to keep me busy until I crash." Alex wasn't sure how he felt about that. He didn't like to feel manipulated, and Yassen did that often enough. On the other hand, he would appreciate it when it was time to sleep. He wouldn't toss and turn from insomnia, at least. Only from the nightmares.

He felt like his body had a running countdown. Tired and weary and fragile, and he felt like he wanted to cry at the weirdest times.

"Tonight is going to suck, isn't it?" he asked quietly. "It's all going to catch up with me."

"Most likely. If not tonight, then tomorrow. If you are tired enough, that might ease your sleep tonight. You have been under a lot of pressure and have been given no time to adjust in. Some operatives have turned to alcohol or drugs for it. They rarely live long past that."

Alex could imagine that. It would be a recipe for disaster. If they didn't get themselves killed, SCORPIA would probably do it for them.

He wondered if he should ask. Then he decided he might as well. Yassen seemed willing to talk, and he obviously wanted to keep Alex busy. It wasn't that often he got that sort of chance, and right now, Alex was all right with being distracted. He would have to deal with the rest soon enough.

"Malagosto always made it sound so easy. There was a lot to learn and keep up with, but they made that sound like the hard part. Once you graduated, the hard part was over. I know you said that a number of students don't survive their first assignment, but ..." Alex trailed off. "They never covered that sort of thing. I know it's on purpose, I just figured it would be in their own best interest to get their operatives as ready as possible."

"A third of your classmates from Malagosto won't survive a year. Another third will have a career as competent, dependable operatives but will never be skilled or trusted enough to work on the larger, more valuable operations. Once you graduate, the odds that you will see any of them again are small. You wouldn't know the difference. They know they will lose some of their students. For the most part, those students are the less valuable ones, and so SCORPIA doesn't mind all that much. They want the students motivated to work hard, but a life as one of their elite assassins is not a given."

Alex didn't want to consider that too much, but his brain had already started down that trail. Ten students including himself when he had arrived. Around three wouldn't be alive in a year. Three, maybe four would be decent but not much else. Three would potentially be some of SCORPIA's future top operatives.

Yassen watched him like he knew what Alex was thinking. Alex made a point not to consider that first third too much, but he did wonder about the future SCORPIA elite.

"The last third ..." Alex mused out loud for Yassen's benefit. "Klaus, I think. He trained with the Taliban, and he got plenty of praise at Malagosto. Garcia was in the French Foreign Legion for six years. They both have a lot of experience."

Yassen nodded. Made a small sound of agreement that was almost downed out by the engines. "And Alex Rider," he said. "You are already well on your way, Alex. You made a good impression in Nice and Singapore both. You are already better trained at fifteen than a number of operatives manage in their entire career. Everyone has high expectations of you. Not merely the board, but the instructors at Malagosto, the students that trained alongside you, and the operatives aware of your existence. The most recent student with such potential was Nile."

Nile, who had been Julia Rothman's second and had been snatched up by Brendan Chase the moment he was cleared for active duty again. Nile, who was quite possible the only other operative who could reliably hold his own against Yassen Gregorovich in unarmed combat.

When Yassen had been sent off on an assignment while Alex was at Malagosto, SCORPIA had made Nile his substitute mentor. Alex hadn't thought too much about it since Nile was obviously extremely skilled and still had a bit of recovery to go, and Alex was a lot younger than the rest of the students, but apparently it went a little deeper than that.

It had also marked Alex as someone to pay attention to, even if Yassen's training hadn't done so already. No one else at Malagosto had a mentor. Alex had been singled out from the very start.

"Is that why everyone seems to know how my graduation went? I didn't think anyone would care, honestly." Anyone but himself and Yassen, that was. Murder seemed to be a minor detail to everyone else in SCORPIA, not the single moment that had left him with no way out. Then again, a number of them had killed before. Most of them, in fact.

"You are one of SCORPIA's protégés. The first of the next generation of elite operatives. You managed well, so you will be held up as an example. Malagosto students are competitive. Your instructors know how to cultivate that to a healthy level. You have known SAS soldiers. How would they have taken the idea of a fifteen-year-old that could best them on the shooting range?"

Eagle? Fox? Snake? _Wolf?_

"They would have hated it and worked day and night to prove they were better."

"Malagosto's students are less single-minded, perhaps, but the principle remains the same. They know you are my student for a reason. They will still see your skills as the goal to surpass. I taught a few lessons when I brought you there for that reason. Nile has done the same. Perhaps, in time, so will you. It's a useful way to show them what to strive towards."

Huh.

It was a weird idea, him as the teacher to a dozen people a decade older than him. Weird, and a little appealing. As d'Arc had predicted, Alex had genuinely enjoyed his time at Malagosto. He thought he might enjoy teaching a class or two as well.

As the world sailed by, Miami Beach to one side and endless sea to the other, Alex settled down and just watched the bright blue of the sky and the deeper blue of the sea.

"They probably told Jack, didn't they? That I killed someone," he eventually asked.

"They did. Even if it does nothing to convince her to assist them, they would hope it would remove another bit of support you might have left."

Alex didn't ask how he knew. He was sure SCORPIA kept a close eye on things. "So they'll do their best to drive me further into SCORPIA's arms. Great job."

"As far as they are concerned, you are beyond redemption. They work damage control now. You are wanted by MI6, preferably alive, but they know we will keep you out of British territory as much as possible. Alex Rider is a wanted SCORPIA operative in a number of countries, but none of them would be quite as relentless as Britain. MI6 does not take betrayal well. They still hunt you but they know that realistically, the odds of capturing you right now are small. So, they do what they can. She would likely have harboured you if necessary before. Now, as a wanted murderer, even she might think twice before she assisted you."

That thought hurt more than Alex thought it would, for all that he knew he deserved it.

He wanted to get a burner phone and call Jack like Yassen had let him for Christmas, wanted to keep that bit of his old life and hear her voice, but he had no idea of what to say. Would she be disappointed? Forgive him? How could he possibly justify what he had done, especially with SCORPIA and the CIA and who knew how many others keeping taps on her phone?

"Alex." Yassen's voice was quiet. "Every time you contact her, you mark her as someone that could be used against you, and not merely by SCORPIA."

Right. Yassen was a mind reader. Alex should really just accept that.

"I know," he admitted. "That doesn't mean I have to like it."

He had been given three minutes on the phone with her. Just enough to reassure her and hear her voice again. Three minutes in nine months. He hadn't even been allowed to contact Tom.

He wasn't sure he even wanted to now. Had MI6 told Tom about Alex's new career, too? Probably. Alex had broken the Official Secrets Act, after all. It would make sense if they decided that made Tom a likely point of contact.

With the amount of trouble Alex had already caused … did he even have the right to interrupt their lives anymore? Wouldn't it be kinder to just let them move on and just … forget about him? Blunt was ruthless. Did Alex have any right to bring MI6's full attention down on them and make them targets just because they were his friends?

Alex's thoughts when he settled down to stare at the sky again were a lot darker than they had been before.

They anchored rather than find a marina that evening. As Yassen had predicted, Alex was exhausted. Exhausted and hungry. He wolfed down his dinner in record time and was ready to collapse by nine.

The cabin that Yassen offered him had small, oval windows and a bathroom of its own, a soft bed, a small couch, and warm lights, but Alex still hesitated. He was dead on his feet, he could barely keep his eyes open, but he knew what would happen the moment he fell asleep.

The nightmares had been bad the night before. Now, when he knew he was safe for a while and would get the time to cope with things, even if just for a week … he really didn't want to fall asleep. He didn't want to deal with what he knew was coming.

Yassen must have spotted his stillness because he approached and stopped by the door. "Alex?"

The cabin was large but felt small and claustrophobic, and he didn't want to consider how bad it would get with the door closed and the lights off. The world felt cramped all of a sudden, and he could imagine the room sealed, a prison cell with no escape from the nightmares and nothing and no one there -

"Can you stay?" he half-asked, half-pleaded, too exhausted to feel ashamed of it. "I can't – I don't want to be alone. Please."

He was so tired he wanted to cry, but he didn't want to go to sleep. They had shared a hotel room the night before, and the company had helped. The thought of a small, enclosed room, all on his own -

"Alex." The word was little more than a sigh, but Yassen did step into the room, picked up the sleepwear on the bed, and pressed it into Alex's hands. "Go change. I will prepare the boat for the night. I will be on the couch. It is not a hardship. I will read or work. I can sleep in the morning. We will merely leave a little later. If you need me, I will be here."

Alex took a breath. Nodded. Felt a little better at the knowledge that he wouldn't be alone. "Thank you," he said quietly and vanished into the small bathroom before Yassen could respond.

Alex spent the night between sleep and awareness, where the nightmares felt too real and warped themselves to fit the real world.

He woke up twice, tangled in the thin sheets and fighting against dark figures with no faces, to the reassuring touch of Yassen's hand on his arm and his name spoken in a voice familiar enough to tear him from the nightmares. He wasn't alone and it helped more than he could have hoped for.

Half asleep, he repeatedly reached for weapons he didn't have, to stop the shadows that appeared in the doorway, in the bathroom, beyond the windows in the dead of the night -

Logically he knew they weren't there, that Yassen would have shot anyone who approached them, that there was nothing but sea around them and that no one could just stand on open water and stare in through the windows, but it didn't make the nightmares any less real to him. Yassen had moved their weapons safely out of Alex's reach before they had settled for the night. Now Alex knew why.

In the early morning when he finally woke up proper, he was curled up on the narrow couch next to Yassen with no memory of how he got there or of the nightmare that had driven him out of bed in the first place. Just a vague recollection of malevolent shadows and smeared blood. His face was streaked with dried tears, though, and Yassen's hand rested on his shoulder. He was pretty sure it hadn't been good, then.

Based on the sharp pain in his back when he shifted, he had been stuck in that position for a while, too. The hand on his shoulder vanished.

"You have been sleeping here for about two hours," Yassen said quietly. Sometimes Alex swore he really could read minds. "You never even woke up, but you refused to get back in the bed. A bit of back pain seemed like the better alternative."

Alex had felt claustrophobic in the bed, tangled in the sheets. He hadn't wanted to be alone. He faintly remembered that much, but the memories were already fading as he tried to grasp them.

He looked away, a little embarrassed about the whole thing. The trained SCORPIA assassin who couldn't even sleep alone because he couldn't handle the nightmares. Yassen politely ignored it.

"Stretch well before you do anything else. It should remove the worst of the discomfort."

Alex nodded. Took a deep breath. "Thank you."

He didn't expand any further on it and he didn't need to. Yassen just nodded once in response. "There is additional security in sleeping in shifts. I will take my turn now. I expect you to finish your workout in the meanwhile. If anything happens, wake me up."

Calm. Practical. Alex hated it sometimes but right now that was exactly what he needed. Four hours later when Yassen reappeared, Alex had done his two hours of workout and had breakfast, and in the bright Florida sunlight, he felt a little more like a normal person again. Not all right, not by a long shot, but better. Just a bit. Right now, Alex would take whatever he could get.

* * *

A/N 3: I've avoided most nautical terms, as Alex isn't that familiar with boats.

Next: Maybe Yassen isn't the best emotional support out there, but Alex knows that's all he's going to get.


	15. Bright Sun-Shiny Days

A/N: Like with the Singapore assignment, I'll finish writing the next story arc before I start posting it. So if it takes the full week before the next update, that's why. As always, thank you for reading and for your reviews!

* * *

They continued their meandering cruise along the Florida Keys the second day. It was not a particularly long distance – at her top speed, the _License to Chill_ could get to Key West within a day – but that wasn't really the point. The point was peace and isolation.

Alex enjoyed the chance to push the yacht to her limits when Yassen let him, but for the most part it was just relaxation. A brief break before SCORPIA demanded their presence again. The background information they had already been given lingered in the back of Alex's mind, never entirely forgotten though he did his best not to think about it yet. He also hadn't missed the fact that Yassen was still in contact with their employers or that they were never further away than they could to get back to Miami within a day if something unexpected came up.

He had expected nightmares and flashbacks about the yacht in Singapore but they never showed. The _License to Chill_ was different enough that it didn't trigger the memories as much as it could have. Alex wouldn't be surprised if Yassen had arranged for that on purpose.

With his tan from Malagosto, Alex knew he looked right at home as the spoiled son of a well-to-do family. Even the pink scars on his wrists were fading. Yassen was still his usual pale self, though that fit neatly with their cover story. He was a busy man and unlike his son, he did not have time to simply lounge about and enjoy his wealth.

Far away from prying eyes and ears, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that if Alex asked, Yassen would answer.

Alex intended to make use of that. He had no idea if he would ever get a chance like that again.

"So what do retired assassins even do?" he asked on that second day of sea and sun. "You talked about it in Nice. Retiring."

"Most do not live that long. Those that do, some still remain active. They accept the jobs they wish and refuse the rest. Some vanish. Become someone else entirely and leave for elsewhere with their funds. Any assassin that lives that long is at least competent. They will have enemies that do not respect a peaceful retirement from the field." Yassen was silent as the seconds stretched on. Alex got the impression he wasn't quite finished. "The board would be pleased to see me teach at Malagosto. I would prefer a house in Saint Petersburg, I think. Return home for good. Take an occasional job for the Russian mafia. I had given it some thought before I heard of events with Sarov. Now I wish to train you proper first. Ensure you survive. Five years, perhaps. Forty is a good age."

Forty. That was younger than Ian Rider had been when Yassen killed him. How long did MI6 agents stay in the field? Did they even get a say in the matter or did they simply get shifted to desk duty one day? Did Blunt use the same trick that he had with Alex if he wasn't happy with their retirement plans? Just one more mission, and no one else could do it, and we can make your life so very difficult otherwise. But then, Alex hadn't been officially employed. He hadn't been a normal agent. Blunt wouldn't need to blackmail or coerce his agents into anything. He just had to give the order.

"SCORPIA just lets their operatives retire?"

"Once you have repaid what you owe for training and finished your exclusive contract, you are technically free to leave. Most do not. It would require a large network of contacts to be able to handle alone what SCORPIA does as an organisation for its operatives. Assignments, cover identities, weapons. A few join other organisations. Competitors or intelligence agencies. SCORPIA does not take kindly to that. A spotless record of a decade or more, however? SCORPIA would not be pleased to lose you but they would allow retirement on good terms."

Even with his limited experience, Alex could understand on some level why most stayed. It was an easy life if you didn't have a problem with the job. SCORPIA had contacts all over the world. Cover identities were arranged by others, assignments were negotiated and clients were vetted in advance, and the pay was good. Operation Damocles, at least, had paid well and made a serious dent in the debt that hung over Alex's head … although it was probably different for those operatives that never got moved past mid-range assignments.

It was a convenient life for an assassin. Finish a job, return for a new one, get all the documents required, meet a contact in the new location to get weapons and intel, finish the job, and return for another one.

It would be an easy life to get sucked into, Alex imagined. To just follow that pattern until you got killed or lived long enough to retire and spend the money under a new identity somewhere.

Buy a yacht. Start sailing and never stop again. Was that why Yassen had bought a yacht of his own?

"I wanted to play football," Alex confessed. It felt childish after everything that had happened in the past year but he wanted to say it, anyway. "Professionally, I mean. I never wanted to be a spy."

 _Or an assassin_ , but that went unsaid.

"The pay is generous if you are skilled enough."

It felt a little weird, discussing the salaries of footballers with Yassen Gregorovich, but Alex didn't really care. It also felt weirdly normal, and he wanted that.

"I was pretty good at it but I don't think I'd ever have made it as a pro. Not really. I had too many other hobbies. It would have been boring in the long run. Ian always encouraged a lot of different kinds of exercise."

"Most of them conveniently useful to MI6."

"Yeah." The acknowledgement was little more than an exhale. "I wish I could ask him. I know I was a pretty active kid. Did he just try to keep me busy and find sports that I enjoyed to run off some of that energy? Did he want to protect me and train me as much as he could, so I'd be able to handle myself if something happened? Or did he really train me as a spy from the moment I could walk?"

Yassen was silent for a while. "A bit of everything, perhaps," he eventually said. "I doubt he ever forgot what happened to your parents. There would always be the risk that you would be targeted for your connection to Hunter. He would have known that. I do not believe he would be callous enough to train you as a weapon merely for MI6 to use. He wanted you to survive. And perhaps the situation would one day have become dire enough that your abilities alone would not be enough to protect you, but they would be enough to bargain for MI6's assistance. Your employment in return for their protection."

The thought was enough to send a chill down Alex's back even in the bright sunshine. It hadn't come to that since MI6 had decided to go for blackmail and coercion instead, but it wasn't like it would have been that much different. Indentured servitude. Probably even flat-out slavery. After all, MI6 had been happy to lend him to the CIA already. If Alex had been dependent on them for his survival, he would have been as good as property to them.

It was not a cheerful thought. He could imagine what would happen if they caught him now, trained by Yassen Gregorovich and SCORPIA and already guilty of murder, and that thought was even worse. MI6 wanted him alive for a reason. Probably for intel, but he knew Blunt well enough to know that the man would do whatever it would take to turn Alex back into obedient MI6 property.

Alex shuddered. Reached blindly for something else to think about.

"What did kids in Russia want to be when they grew up?" he asked on a whim, and maybe the topic was a little dangerous, but Yassen seemed to be in an indulgent mood. "Astronauts? Firefighters? Famous?"

Yassen was silent for a long time and looked a little thoughtful. Alex didn't speak.

"I grew up in a small village," the man eventually said, quiet and considering. "We had little in terms of dreams beyond doing well in school. Perhaps see the world beyond our village one day."

Another long pause. "I wanted to be a helicopter pilot," Yassen eventually admitted.

The closest Alex had ever come to the human underneath Yassen's cold exterior, to the person who had once been no older than Alex himself, with hopes and dreams and a future, and something in Alex's heart clenched. No kid grew up with dreams about becoming an assassin. Yassen had been forced into that life by circumstances and the world as much as Alex himself had been.

"You flew that chopper in London. When you shot Sayle." He had done a good job of it, too. Well enough to shoot the man twice with lethal accuracy and still keep the helicopter under control.

"I received my licence six years ago. It's a useful skill in our line of work."

Not an indulgence. Never an indulgence, not with Yassen Gregorovich. Everything he learned, everything he did served a practical purpose. It reminded Alex too much of the person SCORPIA tried to turn him into now as well. Too much of the person Yassen himself wanted Alex Rider to be, though Alex suspected that Yassen, at least, wanted that because he thought it would give Alex the best chances of survival.

They both fell silent again. Alex tried to imagine a world where his parents had lived. Where he had probably grown up in France and never been trained as spy. Where MI6 didn't know him as anything other than a name in a file, as the son of one of their agents. Where he might have had siblings. A family.

He didn't ask Yassen about his family. It would have been too personal and he knew it. Even their unspoken agreement had limits.

A few clouds drifted by far above them. Alex let his thoughts drift with them and simply enjoyed the low rumble of the engines and the sway of the yacht.

The second night Alex slept on the forward deck. There was a large cushion in a slight indent in the deck itself that was probably meant for sunbathing, but Alex curled up on it in a blanket and stared at the stars. He hadn't seen them much in London, and the safe-house in Russia had been in the middle of the forest. Malagosto would have been great for stargazing if it hadn't been for the brutal schedule of lessons, homework, tests, surprise night-time exercises, and whatever else the instructors had brought out for variety. There hadn't been much time for anything that wasn't directly related to classes.

Anchored some distance from shore, all Alex heard now were the quiet sounds of the sea and the night. There were lights in the distance and two other boats within sight in the clear weather, but the sky was endless and dark, and the stars impossibly bright.

Yassen settled down on the other half of the cushion. Alex could just make out the thin cord of his headphones, although only one earbud was actually in. Japanese lessons, Alex suspected. That was the most recent language Yassen had started to learn.

"You don't have to keep that close of an eye on me," Alex objected halfheartedly. "It's not like I'm going to jump overboard because I thought I saw a mermaid or something."

"The fact that you feel the need to reassure me of this does not help your argument."

Alex didn't bother to argue more than that. The company made it a little easier to go to sleep, and he slept better than he had in ages under the moonlit Florida sky. Real sleep from proper tiredness and not raw exhaustion. The light breeze and the sound of the waves and the smell of the sea all seemed to mute the nightmares a little and while he woke up several times, there was still real rest between the bad dreams.

They settled into an easy schedule for the rest of the week. Alex went to bed early and slept until six or seven in the morning. Yassen stayed up until Alex was awake and slept four hours. Then they would sail until they found a place to anchor for the night.

Alex went snorkelling on the third day and proper scuba diving on the fourth under Yassen's watchful eye. Yassen had made sure they had the equipment for it. Alex watched the Florida Keys pass by and the clouds and sky above and the other boats around them. There had been a huge catamaran that easily kept pace with them for several hours on the second day before they parted ways – the _Chase_ was even bigger than the _License to Chill_ and lived well up to her name. The _Called In Sick_ kept them company while Alex snorkelled, a family of five on vacation.

Since Alex had slept all right on the deck that second night, he had spent the third night up there as well. On the fourth, he returned to his cabin. The ghosts returned with him.

"Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice?" Ian Rider spat. His chest was a mess of bullet wounds, most still bleeding. "He killed me!"

"You trained me and left me at Blunt's mercy!" Alex spat right back. "You get _no_ say in my decisions!"

Jacob Sullivan looked bitter and betrayed, arms wrapped around himself and still in the clothes Alex had last seen him in. Physically he looked unharmed, but his eyes had the whitish, unseeing sheen of death.

"You let them kill me," he accused. "How much did they pay you to pretend to be security until they didn't need us anymore?"

Alex hid a flinch and forced himself not to look away. "There was nothing I could do."

The excuse sounded pathetic even to himself. Jacob's teeth bared in a snarl, more aggressive than he had ever been in life. "You could have warned us!"

"Then they would have killed you straight away, and me as well!" Like Alex hadn't relived that brief stay in the safe-house over and over, wondering if he could have done something and come up with nothing.

"You would have found a way. You're Alex Rider," Jacob said accusingly. "Isn't that what you used to do? Pull off the impossible for MI6? The old Alex Rider would have risked it. He would have done something. You're SCORPIA's now. Their little pet murderer."

" _Shut up_ ," Alex hissed.

"Or what, you'll kill me again?" Jacob mocked, angry and resentful, but the figure faded and vanished in a haze.

Laurence Wright looked weary and resigned. He looked like he had in the scope, the moment before Alex had pulled the trigger, but as Alex watched, a bullet wound slightly to the left of Wright's forehead slowly opened and started to bleed. "We should have known something was wrong when Gregorovich spared you and killed Sayle. John Rider was too good at his cover for an MI6 agent." The last warmth leached from his eyes as he spoke and the weariness turned to anger. Anger and betrayal and hate. He bared his teeth in a bloody snarl. "You were always SCORPIA's. It runs in your blood. We should have let you die. How many more will you kill to _establish your cover?_ Filthy little traitor, just like your father."

"My father was not a traitor!" Alex snarled and matched Wright's voice, hate to hate and venom to venom.

" _Traitor!_ " Wright's eyes looked red, the colour of dried blood. "If SCORPIA hadn't killed him, MI6 would have. Once SCORPIA, always SCORPIA!"

" _Go away!_ " Alex screamed.

Wright reached out for him with bloody hands and Alex woke up to the feeling of a hand on his shoulder, and he lashed out before he knew it.

The punch never connected. A strong hand gripped his arm, and memories of a safe-house in Russia took over and brought Alex into full awareness. _Yassen._

His pulse raced. His breathing was uneven. He felt like he was about to cry.

"Ian," he whispered in answer to the unspoken question. "And Jacob and Wright."

"They are all dead." Yassen probably meant that as some sort of reassurance.

"Yeah, I know, that's kind of the problem," Alex replied, tired and bitter and weary.

"They cannot harm you."

Alex didn't answer but curled back up on the bed and listened to the sound of the waves and Yassen's even breathing and his own heartbeat.

He must have fallen asleep again, because when he opened his eyes, he found himself face to face with his father.

"Alex," John Rider said softly. He looked like the recordings Nile had found. Like what Alex figured his grown-up self might look like. "I never wanted this for you."

Alex felt a lump in his throat and the sting of tears in his eyes. "Then you shouldn't have died. You left me, both of you."

"We never wanted to, Alex, but we were so grateful you survived." Sincere and a little longing. His eyes were a mirror image of Alex's own but they looked much warmer and more expressive than Alex's ever did these days. They looked like John Rider and not like Hunter. "All we ever wanted was for you to be safe and happy."

"I got fourteen years of safe and happy with Jack and Ian," Alex said. He wanted to reassure the figment of his imagination a little, even if it made no sense even to himself. It was a weird kind of nightmare, but Alex was all right with it. Much better than the other ones.

His father shook his head. He looked tired. Regretful. "Fourteen years. Not even a full childhood. We wanted you to have a lifetime."

"I don't think I'll get that," Alex admitted quietly. "Safe and happy or otherwise."

"Probably not," his father agreed. "But try, at least. We love you, Alex. Try not to show up too soon."

"I'm a _Rider_." The words had been half joke and half reassurance when he had spoken them to Yassen at Malagosto. Now they sounded like a death sentence to his own ears.

John Rider seemed to agree, because he just looked resigned. "You are. We love you, Alex. Whatever happens. Remember that."

Alex woke up in the hazy light of very early morning, not with a knot of fear or guilt in his chest but with a bone-deep sense of loss and loneliness.

"Alex." Yassen's voice, low and a little worried, and a light hand on his shoulder. The mattress shifted under his weight as he sat down. "Alex?"

Alex curled up with no regard for the emotionless killer that SCORPIA wanted him to be and broke down in tears for the parents he had never known and the childhood he would never have. And Yassen, sitting on the edge of the bed, never spoke and never moved but simply stayed there, one reassuring hand on his back as Alex cried himself back to sleep.

* * *

They reached Key West that afternoon, five days into their small cruise. They would spend the night there, midway between Miami and Havana.

Alex didn't say much that day and Yassen didn't force him to. He felt hollow. Like something was missing. Like he had only just really accepted that he was an orphan. That he had no one left.

Alex didn't tell Yassen about his dream about his father. He suspected Yassen probably knew, anyway. The man could read him like an open book.

"Nile gave me copies of everything SCORPIA has about my father," Alex eventually said, although he knew Yassen was already aware of it. He wouldn't be surprised if Nile had asked for Yassen's permission first. "I saw the video of Albert Bridge. They made it look real."

"Very much so. Hunter's life depended on it."

It had been hard enough to watch for Alex, and he had known it had been a set-up and that John Rider hadn't actually been shot in cold blood. He wondered if Yassen had ever watched it. Probably. To get an idea of MI6's methods, if nothing else.

"But not real enough."

"No. Not enough. They grew suspicious. Once that happened, it was impossible to keep it a secret. MI6 was careful, but not careful enough."

"And SCORPIA used Ash to handle the bomb," Alex finished. "Test a new operative and get rid of a double agent in one move."

Alex was surprised SCORPIA hadn't done the same to him for his graduation. But then, Alex hadn't been an official MI6 agent with years of experience and blood on his hands already. He had been barely fifteen and he had never killed before. It had been hard enough just to kill someone, especially someone who reminded him so much of Ian Rider. SCORPIA had to have known he would have refused if they had told him to kill someone he actually knew. Someone he cared about.

"They want your willing cooperation. You are a valuable operative. They tested you, but not to the same extend a known MI6 agent would have been right after Hunter's betrayal had been revealed."

"I was still a known MI6 agent," Alex felt compelled to point out.

"Fourteen years old, with no official training, no legal standing, and blackmailed into the position. You spent five months with me in complete isolation. Even MI6 would have hesitated at taking that sort of risk with an adult, experienced agent, much less someone in your position. No, Alex. The board had little worry that you had been sent by MI6. Their reluctance came from the ghost of Hunter and your own reputation. They trusted him and he betrayed them. The board never forgot that. Your test was of your obedience and willingness to kill on their order. Usually, the test is of skill. That, they never doubted with you."

Different tests for different students. Alex supposed it made sense. It was always an assassination, but the details were different.

What test had someone like Nile been given? Skilled, lethal, and with no qualms about murder. Alex doubted he wanted to know.

"They were still worried enough to put a tracker in me."

"If they had been genuinely suspicious of you, you would be dead." Yassen's words were brutally honest. "A tracker is additional insurance. It costs nothing to them but gives an added incentive for you to behave. To not act on any second thoughts you might have about your choice."

To leave him with no way out until he had become the ruthless killer SCORPIA wanted him to be or until he broke under the strain. He knew he was watched, so he would be on his best behaviour. Five years down the line, with the exclusive contract up and the tracker removed, that best behaviour would probably be second nature.

Alex didn't dream much that night. For once he got rest. What little he did remember were glimpses of himself in a mirror with eyes as cold and emotionless as Yassen's. They weren't pleasant dreams but he would take them over the nightmares any time.

They turned back towards Miami again the next morning. They would split the return trip over two days since they weren't in that much of a rush, but it was still a reminder that real life was about to intrude again.

Alex wished they could just keep sailing. They had money and a yacht. What was theft, even of something that expensive, when he had already killed repeatedly? They could keep sailing, cross the Gulf Stream, continue south, and just … vanish. Alex thought he could live a happy life on a tropical island somewhere. Professional beach bum. Who would look for a rogue MI6 agent turned SCORPIA assassin in a place like that? He was fifteen. He could look like an entirely different person with a few basic supplies and five years to grow up in.

He didn't suggest it to Yassen. He didn't think it was quite that sort of retirement the man had in mind, dodging SCORPIA assassins and intelligence agencies for the rest of his life. One or the other, maybe, but not both.

He didn't suggest it, but he was very tempted when the marina came into view. When their small break was over and the world beyond the yacht came knocking again.

The background information they had been given was all about the drug syndicates in Miami, and in particular the largest of the bunch. There was a lot of information that Alex knew they wouldn't have needed if they weren't intended to target someone very high in hierarchy.

Someone influential and very dangerous, if the American government had been willing to give the job to SCORPIA rather than stomp through that particular hornet's nest themselves.

Their assignment arrived on Yassen's computer on the evening of the seventh day, two hours after they had returned the _License to Chill._ SCORPIA had given them the full week. Now they wanted them back to work.

* * *

Next: Alex is pretty sure that every government agency he's met is just waiting for the chance to ruin his life. The list obviously didn't stop expanding just because he left MI6.


	16. Miami

A/N 1: The teenage FBI agent is canon. In _Snakehead_ , there is a footnote in Alex's file that the FBI tried to use a teenage agent against the drug syndicates operating out of Miami. The boy was killed almost immediately and the experiment was not repeated.

A/N 2: As it stands, the Miami assignment will be five chapters and around 30k in total (so slightly longer than Damocles), because I apparently can't keep anything short. The first four are mostly complete-ish and just need some solid editing at this point, while the fifth is getting wrapped up.

TheSilverHunt3r: No cameo, unfortunately – I can't do crossovers worth a thing, and I know I'd somehow end up with a (bad) actual Burn Notice crossover because it would be way too tempting to resist.

* * *

Two missions with MI6 and one with the CIA had taught Alex a healthy distrust of intelligence agencies. Sure, using someone of his age was blatantly illegal, but that just meant they couldn't legally employ him. That didn't stop them from blackmailing him and probably disavowing all knowledge of him if he had been caught.

He had been handed over to the CIA so MI6 would be owed a favour and because the Americans had no agents of his age of their own. Understandably, Alex was a little angry to find out that had been the truth of sorts, but definitely not the whole truth.

The FBI _had_ tried to use a teenager to infiltrate several drug syndicates in Miami about six months before Alex had been sent after Sayle. The boy had been caught and killed almost immediately. Obviously that meant that when the next agency needed a teenage agent, they did the sensible thing, realised how dangerous it was, and sent an adult instead.

Oh, wait, Alex mentally corrected. Right, no, they _didn't_. They asked MI6 for the use of _their_ pet teenage agent instead. Then they wouldn't get an American teenager killed, just a British one. Much better that way.

Maybe Alex was a little bitter. He felt he had the right to be.

The boy had been seventeen, just old enough to join the army with parental consent, which had obviously been good enough for the FBI. Just on the right side of highly dubiously but probably not technically illegal. They sounded like child molesters when Alex put it like that, which he figured wasn't far off. If his own situation had been anything but MI6 sanctioned, someone would have been handing out restraining orders like candy to everyone involved.

The fact that the boy had been killed had been bad enough. The FBI had covered everything up, erased all evidence, and figured it would be enough to remove any connection between the kid and themselves.

Then they had discovered they had been sadly mistaken. There was evidence. Ramos, the man in control of the largest of the syndicates, had never used it - he saved it for a rainy day - but it was there. The FBI had been offered enough proof that they could verify it. The head of a drug syndicate, in possession of proof of – at the very least – a highly questionable operation from the FBI and the death of an underage agent. The head of a highly successful drug syndicate, with all the money and political influence that came with it.

One word to the right person, and heads would roll in the FBI. Their reputation would take years to recover. They couldn't arrest him, not with that sort of evidence in his back pocket. They didn't have the kind of people required to just have the entire upper echelon of the syndicate taken out, and they wanted Ramos himself alive for interrogation.

After Cray, they had obviously hoped things had been rattled enough that a competitor would take the man down. Instead, Ramos had come out on top of that minor little territorial dispute and now controlled Miami with little opposition. Someone had apparently weighed two unpleasant alternatives and the risks that came with them and decided it was time for harsher methods that wouldn't be traced back to them.

They had contacted SCORPIA and paid enough money to make the problem go away. Permanently.

SCORPIA, probably just to add insult to injury, had decided to send their own teenage operative and his mentor to handle what the FBI apparently couldn't. Alex got the distinct impression they were showing him off.

He would have wondered why the FBI was willing to let evidence like that become known to SCORPIA, but he was sure SCORPIA was already well aware of it, and the FBI knew it, too.

The background information they had been given was comprehensive and ranged from classified intelligence reports – stolen from several American agencies from what Alex could see – to SCORPIA's own intel on the syndicate. Detailed enough in the latter case to make Alex suspect SCORPIA's sight had been set on the syndicate even before the assignment. The payment from the FBI was just a bonus.

Even then, there was a lot of reconnaissance to be done. Intel to be updated and verified, new associates to be accounted for, changes in the hierarchy to map.

Alex could see why the FBI had tried to use a teenager to infiltrate the organisation. Ramos liked to use street kids and teenagers with criminal records for a number of job. They had a natural belief in their own invincibility, little thought for the future, they were satisfied with a fraction of the pay an adult would demand, and they were easily replaced when they became a liability. Replaced and disposed of.

Drug runners, small-time dealers, manufacturing, muscle and intimidation ... and killers.

Alex really wished he could have been surprised by the last one. After a full year of getting screwed over and ordered around by powerful people ranging from Alan Blunt to SCORPIA's executive board, however, there was little left that actually surprised him about human ruthlessness. Ramos liked the unpredictability of employing teenagers as killers. They didn't have the cold, calm reason of a trained assassin, and he replaced them often enough that few beyond his most trusted knew who they were. SCORPIA prized Alex's youth but had made sure he wouldn't act like the teenager he was. Ramos cultivated that same unpredictability.

The file on the teenage agent had been very thin – there hadn't even been a name – but Alex had a horrible suspicion. "They didn't just send him to infiltrate the syndicate. They tried to get him in with Ramos. They couldn't get him in as one of Ramos' killers, so they tried to get him in as intimidation, didn't they?"

If the FBI had in any way been able to get the boy in as one of the man's pet killers, Alex was sure they would have done it. Undercover agents had done far worse than murder to keep their cover. His own father was proof of that. He doubted they had tried in this case, though. Not with a seventeen-year-old.

Yassen nodded slightly. "An agent would be little help if all they managed was a job as a glorified errand boy. To get close enough for the truly useful intel, you need someone high in hierarchy or close enough to someone in charge. Ramos' enforcers are known to be rabid but they are not killers. It would be the best position for the FBI to slip a child agent into."

"Except it didn't work."

The boy hadn't been trained enough, didn't play the role just right, or it had been pure bad luck. Sometimes that was all it took for a mission to go horribly wrong. Bad luck.

"Except it didn't work," Yassen agreed.

Alex stared at the mug shot of Ramos, taken the one time someone had managed to arrest him for long enough to get even that far.

"I'm the bait. You want me in place as one of his killers."

"An assassin in your case. You are trained, Alex. They are merely children playing with loaded guns. A world away from a trained assassin. But yes. That is one of the easiest ways past security at his home."

There had been an FBI report on that, too. They had caught one of those pet killers alive, a boy that had caught Ramos' interest when he had stabbed someone to death during an argument. When faced with a possible sentence of life without parole, he told them anything they wanted to know. It was effectively useless, of course. The boy had died from 'natural causes' before he could be transferred to a more secure facility, much less testify. It did give them a somewhat reliable idea of Ramos' way to recruit those kids, however. The man never had more than one or two of those killers – it was, Alex figured, probably pretty damn hard to find kids who could reliably shoot someone in cold blood – and he tended to have them brought to his home when he had a job for them.

Alex could understand the psychology behind that. Show off his influence and wealth. Make it an unspoken reminder of what continued loyalty and obedience would gain them. Reward them with money, drugs, or whatever else their tastes ran in. It honestly wasn't all that different from what SCORPIA did, though they did it on a much larger and far more professional scale.

"They can still kill someone. You don't need training for that." All you needed was a weapon. Sometimes not even that.

"It is a risk," Yassen agreed. "Infiltration is never safe, and this carries risks beyond the usual. It would also gain us valuable information. I trained you. I know you are skilled enough to manage the deception and, if necessary, fight your way out."

Alex didn't believe Yassen would send him into certain death, which meant that the man genuinely believed the words. He believed Alex could do it and that it was worth the risk.

Alex had been undercover before. He had risked death, then, too. This was different. Very different. He wasn't pretending to be a schoolboy or part of a family. He would be one of Ramos' child assassins, which meant he would be expected to kill people. He would need to prove himself, or he would be killed as well.

"The targets are usually competitors, subordinates that have displeased him, or people who have otherwise crossed him. He hires a professional for the proper assassinations."

"I thought I shouldn't care about what sort of people my targets are," Alex said a little bitterly.

Yassen sighed. "In this case, I hoped it would make the job easier for you. They all did something to gain Ramos' attention. They are not good people. Perhaps they have some sympathetic sides to them, perhaps they do not. That is not your concern."

Alex could see just fine why Yassen liked that approach. That didn't mean Alex himself agreed. "We can get the information in other ways."

"If that was an option, the FBI would have done so already. We do not know the sort of security in his home. We need someone on the inside."

"People can be bribed."

"They can," Yassen agreed. "The last person in the house who fell for the temptation was one of the security guards. Ramos left him strapped to a chair with three dozen redback spiders for company. The man was arachnophobic to a debilitating degree. Their venom is painful but rarely fatal in healthy adults, even without treatment. Supposedly it took the man a full week to die from dehydration."

That was the sort of man the FBI had sent a teenager up against. The sort of organisation they had wanted a teenager to infiltrate. Alex was two years younger than their own agent had been, but he had at least been trained like an adult by SCORPIA and had a good track record already.

Bribery of anyone on the inside was out, then. Nobody was likely to fall for it, not after that lesson. They would be much more likely to tell their boss instead.

If they wanted someone on the inside, they had to handle it themselves. It was still a huge risk to take that Ramos would believe their cover, but they needed the information.

Their orders were clear. The FBI wanted Ramos alive and well enough to be interrogated, they wanted any information found in his home – electronic and paper both – and they want the man to be officially dead. The rest of the upper echelon had to be disposed of as well, with a significant bonus if the deaths got blamed on competitors or similar.

To do that, they needed someone on the inside. A direct attack without that inside information left too many things that could go wrong. Security measures that destroyed the information they were paid to get, safe-houses and escapes that had been overlooked … it wasn't going to be an easy job.

"I hope we make them pay through the nose for this," Alex muttered.

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation? We will. Never doubt that. The CIA understands necessity. SCORPIA has a decent relationship with them. The FBI … they would not have come to SCORPIA unless they were desperate. We have had unfortunate dealings with them in the past, and they will pay a heavy fee for that. You will not find it in the official agreement, but SCORPIA would prefer it if we destroyed enough of the hierarchy that our contacts here can step in and take over the useful parts of the business."

Take over a drug syndicate's territory and charge the American government for the pleasure. That was a lot of death, though. A lot of violence. If anything went wrong or if the right people got a little too ambitious in the aftermath, it could trigger a drug war in Miami.

"They're taking a huge risk," Alex said. "The FBI. I expected it from the CIA based on everything, but ..." he trailed off.

"The same people who sent an untrained seventeen-year-old against a drug syndicate? No, Alex. They are no better and no worse than any number of agencies out there. They would have arrested him themselves if it wasn't because he knows too many influential people that owe too much to his wealth to wish to see him in government hands. In these cases, sometimes even SCORPIA is the better alternative."

Alex wondered if MI6 had ever made use of SCORPIA's services. He wouldn't be surprised if that turned out to be the case.

He ran through the list of their orders again. The list wasn't long but the amount of work it covered …

"We're two people. They can't expect us to handle this alone."

Yassen looked unconcerned. "I have permission to make use of SCORPIA resources as needed."

There was something about the words that nagged. Alex tried to grasp it. "You normally work alone, don't you? Or did, before you requested me as your partner. Alone or as a subcontractor, right? Have you been put in charge of an operation like this before?"

"It is not a SCORPIA operation in a true sense of the word. It is not supervised by a board member." Yassen paused for a second. "Had it been slightly larger, however, it would likely have been assigned to one of the board."

"Is it a test?" Of Yassen? Alex couldn't quite figure out why.

"With SCORPIA, few things are not. We have been given a large responsibility. The rewards and risks are correspondingly greater, too." Yassen held his gaze. "It could be a test of my ability to lead a larger-scale operation. It could be assurance that our partnership will not be a liability. The FBI had the right idea if an incompetent execution of it when they tried to get an underage agent in place. It could be a test to be certain I will not put your well-being before the success of an operation."

Make sure Yassen wouldn't hesitate to order him into dangerous situations just because Alex was his student. Yeah, Alex could see why the board would frown on that, especially when Alex was Hunter's son.

Alex filed it away. Nodded and focused on their assignment.

"Other operatives, then?" Alex was sure SCORPIA had some in the neighbourhood. If not, they had given Yassen carte blanche to call in available operatives from elsewhere.

"Perhaps by the end of it. It may be an advantage to have an operative in charge of the transfer of power when SCORPIA takes over the syndicate." Yassen frowned slightly. "Multiple attack teams would be better. Once we have the necessary information, we will need to target several locations. Simultaneous attacks would be best. Lessen the risk of problems. If our plan works, you will be the most familiar with Ramos' home. You will take a team with you to handle it. I will supervise the remaining attacks."

It made perfect sense to Alex but for one teeny, tiny minor issue.

"They'll listen to a fifteen-year-old?" It would have been a cold day in hell before the SAS soldiers he had known would have listened to him, and these were SCORPIA's people. Trained killers.

"They will listen to a Malagosto graduate, whatever your age. All the more so, perhaps, for your age. If they are sensible, at least. It takes an unusual candidate to graduate so young and with such excellent results, and Malagosto graduates are not known for their patience or forgiveness." Yassen looked almost amused. "Do not forget the financial incentive. Some assignments pay far better than others. To be assigned to an operation like this is a very decent bonus. If they work well with you, if you are satisfied with them, what will you choose next time you need that sort of backup?"

He would choose the people he knew he could work with. The people he had tested himself. It made sense that they would do their best to keep him happy, then.

"I will let you go through the files and choose a suitable team from the ones available."

"Just like that?"

"It is their job, as this is yours. It will be educational. I'm certain you already have some idea of what you will look for. Now you will simply get the chance to test that theory in practice."

It was a little intimidating, the thought that he would have to trust the success of the assignment to someone else. SCORPIA didn't tolerate failure. Alex hoped the fact that the teams he would have to choose from were still alive meant that they were at least competent.

It was still a little unnerving. Alex ignored it for now and focused on something else. Not much he could do about it, anyway.

"What's my cover, then? He won't just pick some random kid on the streets. Am I supposed to kill someone and hope he sees it? Because I'm not about to just go murder random strangers until he bites."

Well, technically that _was_ his job, his mind supplied helpfully. That was what SCORPIA had trained him for.

Alex firmly believed that his mind should just shut up and leave it alone, thank you very much.

Yassen slid a photo across the table to Alex. The man in it looked around thirty, with short, brown hair, dark blue eyes, and hard features. "Murder would be a little too obvious, I think. Perhaps a too-competent mugging. We will consider the best approach later. As for your cover … this is Rift, a SCORPIA operative and Malagosto graduate. He was Russian and worked mostly in Europe and Asia. He was killed in New York in December. He was known for some sadistic tendencies, though much to Dr Three's disappointment he preferred psychological torture to physical. It would not be an unreasonable assumption that he found a talented child and amused himself by turning it into a killer. He did similar before. This would be the third time."

That sounded like a charming person right there. A perfect candidate for Malagosto, all right. Alex couldn't wait to read the detailed reports on the man's assignments that he would undoubtedly be expected to know, really, he couldn't.

Alex considered the information and tried to see where Yassen was going with it. "So my cover would be Russian, probably. I know the language. Unusually skilled street kid and former pet project of a SCORPIA assassin, then? I escaped the police in New York and went wherever money and opportunity took me. One problem with that. If they run my fingerprints, my cover is blown. MI6 has everything on record. You know they've shared it with everyone else. Fake fingerprints would be too visible up close."

"We can't remove Alex Rider from the database, but we can remove the association between your fingerprints and Alex Rider for a short while. A day or two at the most. Any longer and we risk drawing unwanted attention."

Just long enough to cover a check of his identity if they timed it right. If they made sure to do it right before they made their move.

"Perhaps when you reach your adult age, it would be useful to look into surgery to have your fingerprints altered," Yassen mused. "For now, your status as SCORPIA's youngest operative makes it hard to stay unnoticed, known fingerprints or not."

"He might catch on to it from that alone," Alex warned. "We're using a SCORPIA assassin as my cover. If he ignores the fingerprints and goes through the list of teenage SCORPIA operatives, he'll find me. That's not exactly a long list, and MI6 made sure everyone knows about me."

"Perhaps," Yassen agreed. He reached across the table and tilted Alex's head up. "But the photo in your file is almost a year old. You have grown. Your hair is shorter and dyed. Most of your piercings will be healed. Your features are no longer entirely those of a child. Any photo they may have from Nice or Singapore shows a very different Alex Rider."

He had a point. Alex had a hard time recognising the person in the mirror some mornings, but he hadn't been sure it wasn't just his problem. Yassen kept his grip for a second longer, then let go. "A fair point, however. We will ensure you are seen elsewhere. With your older appearances as well as photos of someone who is visible the Alex Rider from the file seen in … South Africa, perhaps, it would ease suspicions. MI6's attention would lend credibility to those sightings."

Alex didn't ask how they intended to do that. He had seen how well Nile could disguise himself. SCORPIA had contacts all over. All they needed was a boy with roughly his build and they could make the rest match. Ramos' people could still manually check his prints against Alex Rider's, but they would just have to hope for the best. A lot of people were lazy by nature. Alex hoped Ramos' people would be some of them.

"Street kid, then," Alex decided. He would just have to trust SCORPIA would do their part of it. "We'll need to figure out how much he taught me, and I'll need time to establish my cover."

He couldn't just appear from nowhere. There had to be some sort of history, even just a few weeks, or it would be too suspicious.

Yassen nodded slightly. "It will work well for gathering the intel we need. You will have access to areas where I would draw too much attention."

So intel gathering for both of them. Between two different approaches and the files they already had, they should hopefully have a pretty thoroughly idea of what they were up against before they made their move.

Planning made it sound so easy. Alex knew it would be anything but.

At least Ramos kept his little pet killers away from the other teenagers he employed. He didn't want them known and if they never met anyone else, it was much easier to keep up the illusion that they were important and valuable to him. There would be no one who might tell them how often Ramos replaced them. No one who might tell them that he might have more than just that one special little snowflake to handle his dirty work.

He glanced at the photo of Rift again, then up at Yassen. "It'll still be risky," he said quietly. "You know that. There are still a lot of things that can go wrong."

"There are," Yassen admitted. "But you have been trained to handle most things. I would not have suggested this approach if I did not believe you could do it, Alex. MI6 sent you in blind. I will ensure you will have as much support as we can put into place and with every bit of intel we can wring out of the organisation beforehand. You are no longer the untrained child that Blunt sent off to Cornwall and Point Blanc."

No, Alex acknowledged silently, now he was the trained killer that SCORPIA sent off to Nice and Singapore and Miami instead. He didn't voice it out loud, though.

"All right." He would have to trust that Yassen knew what he was doing. That he was right about Alex's abilities. "What's my name for the mission?"

"Alexei," Yassen said. "No last name. You never learned it. Rift got you into the States on a fake passport. You did not care enough to remember the name."

 _Like Sarov._ It was a common enough name but the reminder still settled heavily. Alex forced it aside. The events in Murmansk were less than a year ago but it felt like a lifetime. The Alex he had been back then had refused Sarov's offer. He wondered what he would have done if he had known where he would end up instead. He wanted to believe he would still have refused and not let those millions of people die, but it wasn't a thought he wanted to linger on.

"They'll catch on to the 'Alex' names eventually," he warned instead.

"Perhaps," Yassen conceded. "But it is unlikely to happen yet and it is safer to keep a familiar name until you're used to undercover assignments. You cannot afford to slip up. In time, you will be able to take any name as your own. For now I would prefer the more reliable if more visible option."

Alexei it was, then. They would figure out the details of 'Alexei's' life later.

The basics of Alex's cover settled, Yassen left him alone to pick a team to support him. Alex appreciated the implied confidence in his ability to pick a good one, but that didn't make it any less of a daunting decision.

The files weren't overly detailed but gave Alex what he needed to know. SCORPIA had a lot of grunt workers around the world, but the trained combat teams were a league beyond that and there were a lot fewer of them, too. He needed a team that was used to working together, and the files offered a broad description of experience and personalities. A number of them were unavailable or would take too long to get to Miami. Of the ones that could get there in time to be useful, Alex ruled out the teams that were already associated with another operative. Yassen's words had stuck with him. If he could get a team that hadn't already become used to working with someone else, if he was their first introduction to the more valuable operations … he could use that loyalty. If they could live with a fifteen-year-old in charge of them, anyway.

He ruled out the most veteran and newest teams, too. He wanted someone not too set in their ways, but he also didn't want a repeat of Brecon Beacons. He wanted people at his back who weren't still desperately trying to prove their skills by any means necessary.

Yassen had already picked three teams of his own. Between those and Alex's team, they would hopefully have enough for the number of attacks they would have to carry out. All of them were veteran teams with good track records and a lot of training.

The team Alex finally settled on was semi-permanently stationed in the Middle East where SCORPIA carried out a number of mercenary jobs. No more permanent than they would be able to be in Miami within two weeks, though. With the time it would take them to set up his cover, that would be well before they would need the backup.

Yassen glanced at the file and nodded slightly and that was it. Just like that, Alex had pulled seven people from their previous assignment and rerouted them to Miami. It was no different from what SCORPIA expected from their top operatives – go there, do this, don't ask questions – but it still felt a little weird to have that sort of power at his fingertips, even if it was through Yassen. Weird and unnerving.

Did that make him the Mrs Jones to Yassen's Blunt? He really didn't like that comparison.

Yassen rented a large home for the assignment. Alex and the teams wouldn't stay there, but it would be big enough to meet in and keep whatever supplies they needed. 'Supplies' in SCORPIA terms being weapons and in this case probably combat gear of some sort as well.

Alex really missed Smithers' gadgets. Gordon Ross had dismissed that sort of thing as toys. Interesting toys, sure, but toys. Alex didn't care. He still missed them. He would have felt a lot more comfortable with a handful of them in case of emergencies. The closest thing he got was SCORPIA's surveillance gear. It was state of the art, probably the sort of thing only available to governments otherwise, but it wasn't the same.

An additional two homes had been booked for the four teams when they arrived. At least for Alex's team, that would be a world away from their accommodations in the Middle East. He wondered if Yassen had done that on purpose. A reminder of how nice life as a SCORPIA employee could be when you managed to get into the big leagues and just what kind of perks their skills and loyalty could get them.

Alex spent a night in Yassen's luxury accommodation, just because he could. Then he dropped off anything unnecessary, any hint of his previous identity, and ran through his new cover one last time before he left for his significantly less luxurious future accommodations.

* * *

Next: Alex is pretty sure this isn't how job interviews are supposed to be done but then, based on his experiences with MI6, he could be wrong.


	17. Job Interviews

A/N 1: Somehow this chapter managed to grow by 2k words while I edited it. Since I didn't want another chapter that was all set-up and no action, I'll just post the full thing and wait a week with the next chapter. That sounded like a decent compromise to me, and it'll give me time to plot some future stuff while I'm at it.

* * *

Alex spent the following three weeks establishing his cover.

Alexei spoke passable but clearly accented English and had little interest in getting any better. His body language and mannerisms were somewhere between cautious and cocky, a world away from the easy grace and confidence that Professor Yermalov brutally beat into his students. He hated people, hated the city, and tolerated tourists only marginally more because of the amount of money they tended to carry around.

It had been a pleasant surprise to Alex's instructors at Malagosto that he had already learned pickpocketing from Ian Rider.

"Bloody waste," Ross had said when he had heard. "MI6 should eat their shrivelled little hearts out for not taking proper care of you. Ah, well. Our gain, then."

Alexei's life was a world removed from the luxury of the _License to Chill_ and Yassen's home for the assignment or, before that, the effortlessly expensive lifestyle of Alexander Owen.

A part of Alex liked the change. It had been unnerving at times, the amount of money he had been surrounded by. The amount of money SCORPIA threw at its top operatives. The limit on his 'casual work-related spendings' account alone was ridiculously high, and all of it was blood money. Murder, drugs, espionage, corruption, human slave trade, civil wars, military coups, and whatever else SCORPIA was involved with at any given time.

Alexei was a street kid, but he wasn't bad off. He was a decent pickpocket and could work his way through most locks and a number of alarm systems as well. Miami in spring was warm and sunny, and even just as the pet project of a SCORPIA assassin he was still extremely dangerous and skilled enough to fight his way out of most things and run from what he couldn't.

He slept where he could, but mostly indoors. Empty rental houses on several occasions, a house where the owners were on vacation … the world was much kinder to a homeless kid of Alexei's skills than it was to most others.

He found the good, inexpensive places to eat, because Alexei had grown used to proper food during Rift's tutelage and if he had the money, he would spend it how he pleased. He exercised on the beach in the mornings and used the outdoor showers afterwards, because Rift had been relentless when it came to workouts. He kept his few clothes clean and washed, used a storage locker for the rest, and generally didn't look like a homeless kid at all.

It helped, of course, that Orion had Cossack to watch over him. Yassen did reconnaissance most of the days but they met up frequently, usually in the evening, and exchanged what intel they had. Cossack was the hunter. Orion asked around, used his skills as a spy, and went places where Cossack couldn't, simply because he was still a kid.

If pickpocketing hadn't been quite good enough, Alex sneaked a bill or two from Yassen's pocket. The man knew, of course, but it was the principle of things. Alexei was a street kid. Alex had a cover to keep.

Alex slept surprisingly all right. He was alone but he was tired most days, too. Busy and exhausted. The worst of the nightmares had passed on the _License to Chill_ , and while he didn't sleep well every night, it was still an improvement.

He almost had a run-in with some of Ramos' sponsored gangs several times. They could have been mistaken for normal rough kids if it wasn't because they tended to stick to Ramos' territory. Twice Alex had seen them go after interlopers; one a small-time drug dealer, the other a man who had been caught getting a little too friendly with the Miami police. Both had been beaten nearly to death. Alex had seen neither of them again. Late one evening, scoping out the territory of one of Ramos' more successful dealers, Alex had caught what had to be one of Ramos' pet killers in action. It could have been just a mugging, but the boy – sixteen, maybe, couldn't be more than seventeen – seemed a little too focused. Had cared just a bit too little about the money. He had shot his target four times and run. The boy obviously had the ability to kill and just as obviously very little training in it. His aim was decent at short range, but Alex had enough experience to tell that it took until the third bullet before the target actually died. The first two bullets had caused serious damage but hadn't killed.

Alex could count at least five addresses he was sure hid some sort of drug manufacturing and another dozen that served as distribution. That list he gave to Yassen. It would be useful in the aftermath.

Three times he went with Yassen to get a good look at Ramos' home, a huge manor a good bit away from central Miami. Large and reasonably new, with a pool and a well-groomed garden, and a lot of security. Not enough that it would stop a well-trained team of soldiers, but enough to make most people reconsider an attack and seriously slow down or stop anyone who actually tried. Certainly enough that if anything went wrong while Alex was inside, he would be on his own. Help would not arrive immediately.

Alex's team arrived two weeks into his undercover job. He recognised them from the photos in their file. Their commanding officer was Marcus. He, like most of SCORPIA's people, used a single name - undoubtedly fake - and used a last name only when it was required for a given assignment. He was a short, dark, muscular South African, a former Recce candidate who had shot and killed his commanding officer at point blank range and wounded four others in his escape. The only reason SCORPIA hadn't put him through Malagosto was because he didn't work well on his own. Not all assassins worked alone, but they were all expected to be able to do so. Instead he had been given free hands to collect a team of his own, with excellent results.

Marcus' second in command went by Adams and was part of the reason why Alex had decided on the team. Adams was former military like the rest of the team, but he had a background in engineering and – most importantly to Alex - he had spent a month as the student of SCORPIA's best surveillance specialist. It had been needed for one of their prior jobs, and now it came in handy for Alex as well.

Since the team of seven had just arrived from the Middle East, the weeks in Miami would make for welcome downtime. They were military but with enough training to be able to handle some undercover work. With the rental home that Yassen had arranged for them, they were just a group of old army friends who had met up for a month of leave to catch up on life.

Alex met them the next day, when they'd had the chance to settle in. They had been given little information, only that they had been requested by a SCORPIA operative by the name of Orion for an operation run in the United States by Cossack. They hadn't even known the exact destination until they were already in the air. Like most of SCORPIA, they knew of Cossack's reputation. Orion was an unknown, and Alex could see the exact moment it sunk in that Orion and the kid in front of them were one and the same person.

"Orion, your team," Yassen introduced them. "Team Sagitta for this operation. Sagitta, Orion. Alexei for the duration of this assignment."

Sagitta. The arrow, Alex remembered. Team Sagitta for Orion. An arrow for the hunter.

Marcus blinked. He couldn't quite hide his surprise but didn't seem to make much of an effort to, either. He wouldn't have lasted long as an operative. "I'm Marcus, commanding officer of Sagitta. You're a little younger than we expected."

Yassen stayed silent. It was Alex's team, Alex's first impression to make, and they both knew it.

Alex drew on lessons from Yassen and Malagosto and his stance shifted slightly, from the street kid he pretended to be and to the silent grace of Orion. All deadly skill and the ability to deal brutal violence at a moment's notice. Marcus stood a little straighter, a bit more caution in his stance.

"I'm fifteen," Alex responded with the deceptive mildness of the trained operative that he was. "Will that be a problem?"

Marcus watched him for a long moment, sharp eyes lingering on his stance and the graceful movements that had no place with a fifteen-year-old. His team stayed silent as they waited for his verdict. Then the man seemed to make up his mind. "No, sir. It won't. Malagosto?"

"Malagosto," Alex confirmed, though he deliberately didn't specify how recently his graduation had been. It was a fair question, though. Not all of SCORPIA's operatives went through the school. Most didn't. Maybe Marcus had been around other Malagosto-trained operatives. In any case, the fact that he could spot it was a good sign. Observant and smart enough not to dismiss the idea out of hand just because of Alex's age.

Marcus nodded slightly. He didn't seem surprised. The first round of introductions settled in Alex's favour, Yassen took over.

"Orion's task is to infiltrate the primary target's residence. He will also be in charge of the attack on the place once we have sufficient intel to act. You will serve as contacts and couriers if needed while he is undercover."

Most likely through pickpocketing and dead drops. Alex would not be in a position to write down anything but the most vital information, like sketches of the building and security. If any of Ramos' people found that sort of thing on him, he was dead. They could risk communication later, when they had a better idea of what they were up against. Something small enough to be disposed of fast if necessary, like a bug or a small earpiece, and slip along what sketches and written information he could. With a team of seven as contacts and to handle dead drops, the odds that anyone watching Alex would notice something were small.

"Until then," Yassen concluded, "consider this downtime. Establish your cover and consider it a perk of the job."

In a middle of a very nice rental home in Miami and with access to SCORPIA accounts, Alex could see they got the point just fine.

Consider it a perk of the job. Impress the bosses enough, and it could very well be a perk of a future job, too.

Alex met Yassen's three teams as well – Azov, Baikal, and Danube – but that was a lot less nerve-racking to him. He might have to work with them, but they wouldn't have to take orders from him the way Sagitta might. There was a lot less at stake than during that first introduction with Sagitta.

* * *

The supplies from SCORPIA arrived two days later. Several crates worth of electronics, combat gear, and an ungodly amount of weapons. Maybe that was terrorist version of a care package. Alex wondered if there was a box of home-made, poisoned cookies included somewhere along with an admonishment from Dr Three to remember to wear their bulletproof vests.

It also meant that Alex got to spend a few hours with Adams and the rest of Sagitta as the man took his first look at the surveillance gear.

Adams could have done it alone, but Sagitta wanted a look at their boss for the operation and Orion wanted a look at his team.

"We will not be able to risk surveillance of any kind until we know the level of internal security," Yassen said when everything had been unpacked and sorted out. "We do have one possible complication to take into account. Orion?"

Alex resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably at the reminder. He never felt the tracker. For the most part he forgot about it, too busy with their assignments to focus on anything else. For the most part.

"I have a tracker in me, an implant between my shoulder blades. It doesn't transmit my location, it just records it, but it might be a problem depending on Ramos' level of security." Alex kept his voice calm and level. He couldn't manage emotionless nearly as well as Yassen, but he could manage calm indifference.

There had never been any doubt that Alex would have to mention the implant. It was too big of a risk. They had to be sure it wouldn't be noticed.

Adams frowned slightly. "It could be, sir. Depends on the type. Injection or surgical? If it was an injection, it sounds like Dr Crowe's work. It should be safe, then. Actually, just show me."

The rest of Sagitta had fallen quiet. They didn't even try to pretend to be busy sorting through supplies. Alex took off his shirt. Most of the scars from his MI6 career had faded to a point where you had to really look for them, but they were still there. Faint, white marks if you paid attention, and he knew Sagitta would.

There was no scar on his back where the needle had gone in. Adams seemed to know the location, anyway.

"Right here?" he asked and poked a spot almost on top of the tracker.

"Right there" Alex agreed. "A graduation present from the board."

Adams poked a little harder. It didn't hurt, though Alex could actually feel the tracker now for once, like a tiny lump between Adams' finger and the muscles in Alex's back. He seemed to know what he was doing, tracing the implant carefully to get an idea of the location and size.

"We don't have the equipment here to check for sure, but I'd say that's definitely Dr Crowe's work," Adams confirmed. "Practically invisible unless you've got just the right equipment or know exactly where it is. That's an expensive little graduation present. State of the art, too. The times I've seen it used, it was injected between the shoulder blades. It's smaller than usual, too. Probably the lack of a transmitter."

Alex could feel Sagitta take in the entire exchange and every bit of new information, from the tracker to Alex's physical state – tanned, with movements that might be less graceful than Cossack's but still had a clear echo of them, and a body that was far more muscle and hard lines than any child's should be. Cossack's standards for acceptable physical condition took brutal daily workouts and it showed.

Alex slipped his shirt back on with deliberate casualness, at ease with his body in a way most teenagers weren't. "Seen it a lot?" he asked before he could stop himself.

Adams watched him closely. "About a handful of times, sir. It's a little expensive for casual use. I wasn't joking about the price of it. Dr Crowe originally developed that thing for DARPA. I think it's still classified by the American government. I've only seen it used on unusually valuable hostages and one operative on an extremely high-risk assignment, although those were a little bigger and actually transmitted the location, too. I've never seen it without the transmitter before."

He didn't need to ask the question. Alex could hear it just fine. _Valuable hostage or operative on a high-risk assignment? Which one are you, sir?_

Alex glanced at Yassen. Got permission from the slight nod. "I'm former, conscripted MI6." Alex shrugged. "Honestly, I probably count as both."

"MI6 doesn't use children." Marcus spoke up for the first time.

Alex's lips twisted into a humourless smile. "Just like the FBI doesn't use children? Not officially, they don't. Makes it much easier to deny all knowledge if someone gets killed. Awfully convenient."

Marcus watched him for a long time. Alex didn't move. Finally the man shook his head. "And _we're_ the terrorist organisation. Fucking hell. You were … what? Fourteen, sir?"

Another glance at Yassen. Another slight nod in return. "Fourteen and one month."

"Fucking hell," Marcus repeated, low and vicious. When he looked at Alex again, he frowned. "MI6 doesn't take too well to rogue agents, sir. Can't imagine it would be any different for conscripted ones."

"As said," Alex repeated, perfectly calm and perfectly level, "between valuable hostage and high-risk operative, I'm probably both. A transmitter would be a little risky if MI6 got their hands on me, but the board has good reasons to want to keep track of me. My family has a bit of a complicated history with SCORPIA. It's insurance for them and protection for me."

Walking, talking blackmail on not just MI6 but the CIA as well. Alex was well aware of how much his life would be worth to some people. It was a little risky to tell that much to Sagitta, but he wanted them to have some idea of what they were getting involved in. Build a little trust if he could.

"You're fifteen, sir," Marcus said flatly.

"I'm also a Malagosto graduate. Strip that down to its basics, and that means I'm property of SCORPIA until the end of my exclusive contract. I'm an adult in any way that counts to them. I can either act the part or accept the consequences."

Marcus muttered something that sounded less than flattering about intelligence agencies in general and MI6 in particular. Alex politely didn't ask.

Finally Marcus shook his head. "Sir, permission to shoot your former handler in the face if we run into them?"

"Permission denied," Yassen replied. "If given the chance, SCORPIA wants Alan Blunt alive. Feel free to aim for non-fatal."

"Balls, then," Marcus said blandly. "We've got enough medical training between us to keep him alive through that. Thank you, sir."

Part of Alex knew he should object to that. The other part really wished he would get the chance to see it.

* * *

Alex spent another week becoming Alexei before they made their move. Ramos had habits. Not many, but enough that an assassination would have been easy, if that had been their job. Enough that he was somewhat predictable. He was either careless or secure enough in his position that he felt it didn't matter. From their surveillance and the report that Dr Steiner had done based on their intel, it was a combination of both. He had a lot of security, too, in his home and outside both, but a lot of it was visible intimidation more than skill. It had been different even two years prior according to the reports, when Ramos had still had enough enemies to be a constant target. Nowadays he had grown comfortable. Secure in the power and influence he wielded. He had come out of the post-Cray drug world as one of the clear winners and it showed.

Ramos liked to spend the evenings of the weekend at several clubs. It was less about the company, alcohol, or music, and more because he enjoyed to see the amount of money and drugs that changed hands over the course of the night. Two of the clubs he owned himself through a company. The Loop and the Junction both had a long, colourful history of issues with the authorities, to the surprise of absolutely no one.

They picked the Junction for their set-up. Like the Loop, it had heavy surveillance inside and out and Ramos' people kept a close eye on everything when he was there. Unlike the Loop, a long, thin alley ran behind it and connected to the staff entrance. Dark, isolated, with almost invisible cameras – it was perfect for the sort of mugging they had planned.

They waited until Ramos had been there for long enough to get settled for the evening. Then Alex made his way inside the club through the front entrance without a care in the world. He had been inside several times before. A bit of money and no one had said a word about his age, and the pattern was the same this time. Breaking in through the staff entrance would have drawn unwanted attention. Alex wanted some very specific kind of attention. The sort that came from suspicious guards trained to spot anything out of the ordinary.

Nothing much, barely there – Alexei was skilled and well-trained, after all – but just enough to make them keep an eye on him and, if Alex and Yassen had read them right, to follow him when he seemed a little too interested in one of the guests.

Alex had picked his target well. The man was one of Ramos' subordinates that Ramos only reluctantly put up with, and someone with a tendency to carry a lot of cash to boot. Someone who would be a tempting target and disliked enough that a mugging would make Ramos amused more than angry. The man usually took the staff entrance when he showed up to see his boss at the club, unwilling to be seen out in the front where someone might pay a little too much attention to certain of the guests.

The man did have what was supposedly a bodyguard, a hulking mountain of muscle, but said bodyguard was more for intimidation purposes than anything else. Even Alex's few days of executive protection training had taught him better than that. Neither of them would be a problem. He mentally named them Target and Bodyguard.

Ramos' own guards were far more competent, which was what Alex and Yassen counted on now. He usually stuck with the same three guards whenever he visited one of the clubs. Alex had named two of them Bald and Tattoo for their most distinct features, and the last one Nose, because it had clearly been broken. A lot.

It had taken him two weeks to find out that Bald, at least, went by the name Victor. He was the nominal leader of the three. Ramos usually communicated with the trio by snapping his fingers. Alex still wasn't sure if Tattoo and Nose even _had_ names.

Alex watched and waited that evening at the club. The target arrived well after midnight and looked distinctively skittish. He probably didn't have good news for his boss, then. The man was gone for half an hour and he looked a little paler when he reappeared, bodyguard in tow. Definitely not a good talk, then.

Alex was aware that someone kept a watch on him as well. They probably watched through the cameras, too, but there was a man that Alex was sure was on surveillance duty. He looked a little too focused on Alex's movements instead of enjoying a night out, and Alex had spotted the tell-tale signs that he was armed, too.

Target and Bodyguard moved to the back of the club. Alex casually moved with them, careful not to get seen. He waited until they were clear of the cramped hallway that led to the staff entrance before he followed. He reached the heavy door right before it could slam close and slipped outside.

Between the sounds of Miami's nightlife and the muted noise of the club, neither of the two noticed his approach until it was too late. Rank amateurs, both of them.

The bodyguard turned and reached for something under his light jacket. Alex was faster. Months of lessons from Yassen and Professor Yermalov meant that Alex had the man down in two brutal moves, and only the fact that he deliberately pulled his punches meant that he didn't follow through with a killing blow like he had been taught.

The target had barely had time to move. He reached for a gun as well but had no time to draw it before he was on the ground next to his bodyguard, unconscious and with a large bruise blooming on his face.

Alex sensed someone behind him, the guards that they had counted on, but pretended he hadn't. Alexei wouldn't have the training to spot it.

Yassen watched the whole thing through a sniper's scope from one of the nearby rooftops. They were almost sure they had read Ramos and his men right, and they had run the set-up past Dr Steiner as well, but it was always best to have some kind of insurance. If anything even looked like it was about to go wrong, Yassen would do whatever it took to keep Alex safe and they would figure out a new approach afterwards.

Alex couched down to reach for the target's wallet but the sound of three guns cocking made him freeze.

"Stand up," a male voice told him calmly. "Nice and slow. You don't want to make me twitchy."

Alex held up his hands, straightened, and turned around – slowly. Even knowing that this was what they had planned for, that this would happen, his heart still raced and his every instinct told him to fight.

Ramos' three main guards as expected. Bald seemed to be in charge. "Your gun."

Alex's gun wasn't visible but he wasn't surprised they had seen it, anyway. They were decently professional. For the same reason he lowered his hand cautiously and retrieved the gun with two fingers before he threw it on the ground towards the trio, well out of reach. No move that might be taken as an attack. Not with three guns aimed at him.

Tattoo picked up the gun with gloved hands. The two weapons still aimed at Alex didn't waver as the man crossed the distance between them and shot Alex's two unconscious targets in the head.

Alex had just enough of a warning not to flinch at the sound.

Tattoo stepped back to his two colleagues again.

"You don't wear gloves. That means your fingerprints are now on a murder weapon. You just became guilty of two counts of first-degree murder," Bald said matter-of-factly. "That means I could shoot you right now and call it self-defence. Now, my boss wants to talk to you about this little mess. You can either come along quietly, or I use the self-defence clause. Which one will it be?"

Even knowing that Yassen was watching through a scope, the words still sent a chill down Alex's spine. If he really had been just a street kid, with no one around to help him … he wondered how many others they had done the same to. Alex and Yassen had left the gloves off deliberately. Alexei had been trained not to leave evidence, but he had also been trained not to stand out, and gloves in a night club in Miami would have drawn attention. Alex hadn't expected his gun to be used for cold-blooded murder, though maybe he shouldn't have been all that surprised.

"First option," Alex said in his accented English. "I talk. I don't make trouble."

"Smart choice." Bald gestured with his gun for Alex to follow. There was a car parked one alley down. Another gesture with the gun left little doubt that Alex was supposed to get in.

He had a moment of panic, pushed harshly aside before he could act on it. They had known he would probably be taken elsewhere. Yassen wouldn't be able to follow, at least not immediately. It was a calculated risk, but still a serious one. All the more so because they couldn't risk a tracker for that first meeting. If Ramos had him checked for that sort of thing … the implant would be safe, but anything that looked like an attempted set-up would get Alex killed. Sagitta was on watch at Ramos' manor that night since that was the most likely location Alex would be taken to, but they couldn't know for sure.

With no other choice, Alexei got into the car. Tattoo tied a blindfold tightly over his eyes and Alex's world plunged into darkness. He took the fact that they hadn't handcuffed him as a good sign. An initial test, probably. Kill him if he caused trouble.

No one spoke on the drive, though Alex heard what sounded like someone messing around with a phone. Messaging the boss, maybe. He tried to keep track of the route but gave up around halfway through. It felt like they took several detours as well.

Eventually the car slowed down. The surface changed, and Alex heard what sounded like a gate that opened. The combination matched with the driveway that lead to Ramos' manor. They stopped and Tattoo removed the blindfold again. Probably didn't want to deal with their prisoner walking into everything.

Alex blinked against the sudden light of the large manor in front of them. They had been right about it, then, for what little help that would be if something went wrong. He followed Bald without being told, up the broad stairs and inside the entrance hall.

Alexei looked around as much as he could and tried to get an idea of where he had ended up. Alex looked around and made mental notes about security and surveillance, the number of people and doors and windows and anything else that could be useful. It was a lot to remember but they needed any inside information they could get. He would sketch out what he could later.

If there was a 'later', anyway. He had been in a lot worse situations but that didn't mean it was safe in any way.

Bald led him down a hallway, Tattoo and Nose close behind them. He didn't speak and Alex didn't ask.

They stopped by a room where several of Ramos' security guards seemed to do their work from. Two people and a number of monitors of different kinds, all of which went on Alex's mental list of notes.

"Clothes off."

Alex's eyes narrowed but he didn't speak as he stripped down to his boxers, crossing his arms with a glare. It seemed to be good enough. With visible proof he wasn't carrying anything, they checked his clothes thoroughly as well before they finally let him get dressed again.

Bald pressed Alexei's hand firmly against a scanner. It blinked for a few seconds before it lit up green and Bald let go of his hand again. Alex desperately hoped their temporary disconnection between his name and fingerprints would hold up. Otherwise things were about to go bad pretty fast, and he didn't like his chances of fighting his way out.

They waited for several tense minutes before the thing had finished the last of its search and conceded defeat.

 _No matches found._

"Not just a murderer but an illegal alien, too," Bald commented mildly. "Pretty sure you're not American with that accent. You're just in all sorts of trouble, aren't you, kid?"

Alexei sneered but didn't dignify that with an answer. Bald obviously didn't expect one, either. He picked up the print-out from the futile search and led Alex further into the maze of the house.

They ended up in an expensive-looking office one floor up, overlooking the large garden and pool.

Alex recognised the man in the chair. Ramos had obviously found him interesting enough to cut his evening short and have him brought to his home for a talk.

Nose pushed Alex into the chair in front of the desk none-too-gently. Ramos nodded at the trio and they stepped back to let their boss get a look at their catch.

"So you're the kid that killed one of my people." Ramos didn't seem overly concerned. Alex wouldn't be surprised if he had been looking for a good excuse to dispose of the target himself. When an opportunity had shown itself, he had taken it.

Alexei's eyes narrowed at that. "I killed no one. Your dog did."

"We have surveillance cameras everywhere around the club, including that alley. We saw everything that happened."

Alexei's expression turned distrustful. "I saw no cameras." Lie. They had been very well hidden, but Alex had seen them. It was part of the reason they had chosen that spot. Someone would be watching and they had known it.

"You weren't intended to." He sounded a little condescending.

Alexei bared his teeth. "Then you have proof I did not kill."

"I do," he agreed. "And in another fifteen minutes or so, it will be deleted. It wouldn't do to keep something that incriminating around."

Alex was sure he was lying. If nothing else, even with loyal people it never hurt to have insurance, and Tattoo has shot two people in cold blood. Ramos was not the sort to ignore that kind of useful material.

Ramos turned his laptop towards Alex. The image was very clearly the view of the alley behind the Junction as seen by a decent-quality surveillance camera. The man hit a key and Alex saw his target and the bodyguard appear from the staff entrance. There was no sound but it didn't really need it. It wouldn't have caught anything useful, anyway.

Alex watched himself follow silently, crossing the distance to the two with fast, determined steps. The attack itself took only seconds from Alexei was spotted and until both of the men were unconscious on the ground. The figure on the screen didn't even move like Alex Rider. Alex was a little impressed in spite of everything. It was the first time he had seen himself in disguise from an outside point of view, and he had pulled it off a lot better than he had thought.

Alexei on the screen had dispatched of the bodyguard and the target both in swift, efficient movements. A good bit more brutal than Alex himself would have, but in character for the cover he had.

Ramos paused the recording before his three guards appeared on it. "The move you used on the bodyguard was meant to be followed by a lethal strike. Why didn't you follow through?"

Alex shrugged. "No one cares about muggings. Murders draw attention." Alexei would have little to lose by telling the truth.

"You had a gun. Why didn't you use it?"

"They spot the gun, they shoot. Two against one are bad odds. I don't, they get careless and let me close."

Ramos watched Alex carefully. "Your fingerprints aren't in the databases. Someone trained you and got you here under the radar. Eastern European based on the accent. You certainly aren't American. Where are you from, boy?"

Alexei raised his head in an unspoken challenge. " _Moscow,_ " he said in perfect Russian.

Ramos nodded. Alex didn't know if he recognised the word or the language, but he seemed satisfied with the answer. "Russia, then. Who trained you?"

Alexei watched Ramos and the guards and seemed to consider his chances if he didn't answer. "... Rift."

Ramos made a small gesture. Bald raised his gun slightly. Alexei took the order for what it was and continued. "He was assassin. Russian. He used fake passports. He always used _Rift._ Stupid American name. He was shot."

"Where and when?"

"New York. December."

Ramos snapped his fingers. Tattoo vanished out of the room, undoubtedly to check on this 'Rift'.

"I doubt he'd appreciate your chattiness."

Alexei sneered. "He's dead. Dead people don't care."

"Point," Ramos conceded. For a while he just sat there and watched the boy in front of him. Alexei didn't fidget but glared right back. "Why did he train you? How long?"

"Five months. He was bored. He wanted decoy. What do I know?"

"You obviously went with him. All the way from Moscow."

Alexei shrugged. "I got fed. Trained. I work, he paid me."

"What kind of work?"

"Information. Decoy. Punishment. Go here, steal that, create distraction, make twitchy contact hurt." Alexei sounded bored. He hadn't cared all that much what his job was, as long as it got him paid. Just the sort of temporary pet trainee Rift would have approved of.

Tattoo reappeared. Slipped a folder to Ramos and leaned over to whisper something in his ear. Only the fact that Alex had been listening for it let him catch the low 'SCORPIA' in the sentence.

Ramos' look sharpened. Focused on Alex in a way it hadn't before, like he was reconsidering everything he had managed to get out of the obstinate kid over the course of the questioning. He probably was. There was a big difference between a kid trained by a random killer and one trained by one of SCORPIA's assassins, even just as a pet project. And Alexei had clearly paid attention to his lessons.

Ramos got up. Took a closer look at the boy that had quite suddenly turned out to possible be a lot more valuable than expected.

"You're in a bit of an unfortunate situation," he said thoughtfully. "You're one misplaced weapon from a double murder charge. Fortunately for you, I have a solution to it. You work for me now."

"You pay?" Alex asked. "I work for you."

Alexei was rude and insolent at the best of times. He had almost expected the vicious backhand that followed. It still made his ears ring. Now that Ramos had decided to keep him, his tolerance for Alexei's behaviour had clearly vanished. " _Sir,_ " Ramos corrected.

"You pay, I work for you … _sir_." Alex agreed, with just enough respect not to get backhanded again. Rift had been a hands-on person when it came to training, and Alexei would have learned to walk the careful balance between insolence and obedience or suffered the consequences.

"Fast learner. How old are you?"

"Seventeen … sir." The title came a little less reluctant that time.

The backhand that followed was even harder than the first, closer to a punch than any kind of slap. "First rule, disrespect gets you punished. Second rule," he said coolly, "you don't lie to me. How old are you?"

Alexei bared his teeth in a slight snarl. He could taste blood this time. There would be bruises, too. "... Fifteen. Sir."

"Name?"

"Alexei." Ramos' hand shifted slightly. Alex continued before he could raise it a third time. "No last name, sir."

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

Alex glanced at Tattoo, who had shot the two people in the alley. Seemed to consider his answer and decide that honesty was the best option. "Yes. I was trained, sir. I killed in Moscow before he got me passport."

Ramos nodded slightly. Alex knew he was smart enough to understand it for the test it would have been, before Rift invested anymore time and money in Alexei. The man glanced at Bald. "Do we have anyone suitable for a test?"

Bald paused. "Trick, sir. He's still breathing, sort of."

"Excellent. Give Alexei here a gun. I want to see what kind of skills one of SCORPIA's vaunted assassins managed to beat into a fifteen-year-old brat."

Ramos gestured for Alex to get up. Nose pressed a gun into his hand. Alex made sure to check and handle it with the ease that would be expected of someone like Alexei, though nowhere near what Gordon Ross or Yassen would consider acceptable. He didn't take the entire gun apart, for one. A test, Ramos had called it. That made Alex strongly suspect the gun might be loaded with blanks, though he wasn't about to check and draw attention to it.

He did consider the weight of the gun carefully but couldn't tell for sure. It could be blanks, it could be real. They would be idiots to leave him with an actually loaded gun, though. Even if they gunned him down the moment he fired on them, it would still be enough of a chance to kill one of them, and Alexei had very little to lose. Someone like that might just take a shot at Ramos.

Blanks, then.

Probably, but not guaranteed. He had to assume that when he pulled the trigger, it would be a real bullet. Alexei would assume it was real in any case.

They led Alex two floors down, into the basement, and Alex found the first flaw in the blueprints they had. According to those blueprints, the house didn't _have_ a basement. Something to add to his sketches, then. At least the entrance wasn't hidden, though they did have to go through the kitchen to get to it.

It looked like it had been added after everything else, too. The staircase looked like a later addition, and the short hallway had the air of a bunker more than anything. Light and clean, but with solid walls and slightly cold air. With the small size of what Alex could see of the basement, it made him wonder if maybe there was another one. It would make sense to have a hidden one for important things. Drugs and cash, for one. Weaponry that was on the wrong side of legal. Important evidence that the FBI had paid good money to get back.

There was a door at the end of the hallway that was thoroughly locked. When Nose opened it, the sheer thickness of the door left little doubt that it was soundproof and probably able to block any kind of transmission, too. The reason became obvious a moment later when they stepped inside and Alex found himself staring at a bare-chested, unmoving man handcuffed to a metal chair by the back wall of the room. He was less of a mess than Crux's torture victim had been, but not by much. The wounds were clearly done by less skilled hands, though, and Alex hated the part of him that had learned to tell that sort of thing.

Only the slow movement of his chest and a faint wheeze told Alex the man was alive at all. There were numerous bruises on his stomach and chest that were close to black. Internal injuries, probably. Two black eyes as well, a split lip, broken nose, probably several broken teeth, one hand clearly broken and the other flat-out shattered – nasty, unlikely to ever heal right, but not likely to kill him immediately. Dr Three had taught all of them to recognise potentially life-threatening injuries. It wouldn't do to have a victim die prematurely, after all.

Medical attention needed. Likely to die if left alone, Alex mentally concluded.

Ramos gestured towards the man. "He's outlived his usefulness. You were trained to kill. Consider this a job interview."

Shoot him or vanish without a trace yourself, Alex understood clearly. But then, they had known he would have to do this the moment Yassen had decided to send him to infiltrate the place. Kill or die. Yassen had left him with no other option.

Trick, whatever his real name might be – he was dead no matter what. At the state he was in, it would probably even be a mercy. Alex was almost sure the gun was loaded with blanks, but he couldn't know for sure and he couldn't afford to react if it turned out they had given him actual bullets.

Alex threw himself into Alexei's mindset, into endless shooting lessons with Yassen and the sense of detachment he had felt in Singapore. The detachment SCORPIA wanted in all their assassins.

Alex raised his gun, aimed for the heart – he couldn't make himself do a head-shot, not this close, but he could at least make it quick – and pulled the trigger.

The sound was thunderous in the enclosed room but he knew instantly it was a blank. The feel was all wrong, he didn't need to see the lack of a bullet wound to know it.

He didn't let his relief show, just glared at Ramos in silent accusation, clearly blaming him for the useless weapon. The man in the chair hadn't moved at all. Hadn't even flinched. A small part of Alex's mind changed his assessment of the man from 'in need of medical attention' to 'in need of urgent medical attention'.

"Very good," Ramos complimented him. He sounded pleasantly surprised. "No hesitation at all, and excellent aim as well. Rift trained you well. Victor will drive you back. I'll contact you when I have work for you. Do well and your pay will reflect it. Do well enough and I'll see about finding someone who can finish your training. I'm sure I don't need to tell you what will happen if you feel the need to go to any sort of authority."

"No. Sir," Alexei agreed. Two murder charges at a minimum, and that was assuming they let him live. He was sure he would be kept under surveillance for a while, too.

Nose took the gun back. Alex was led back out of the basement without another word. Forty-five minutes later, he was back in the boat he had slept in for the past few nights, the large bruise on his face the only evidence of what had taken place.

Just like that, Alexei had a job. Yassen would be pleased. Examining the cut in his mouth, swollen lips, and large bruise on his cheek in the mirror, Alex personally thought Yassen could shove any thoughts of congratulations where the sun didn't shine.

* * *

A/N 2: Azov, Baikal, and Danube are all names of Cossack hosts. It seemed appropriate for Yassen.

Next: Working for one crime syndicate is pretty much the same as any other, though at least SCORPIA pays better.


	18. Assignments

A/N 1: As always, thank you for reading and for your reviews!

* * *

Alex picked Marcus' pocket the following day. He left his own small handwritten notes and drawings and helped himself to everything else in the man's pocket. The haul was a well-worn wallet that Alex vaguely recognised from the stack they had bought at a charity shop, with forty-something dollars in bills and coins and a mess of receipts.

Two of the receipts had writing on them, small and brief but perfectly legible. The update from Yassen.

Alexei was under surveillance by Ramos' people; no surprise there. Alex knew that already, but it was nice to have it confirmed. They would probably stop after Alex's first successful job for Ramos, when they could be mostly sure he could be trusted not to try anything stupid. He was surprised they bothered but then, Alexei was SCORPIA-trained, at least to a degree, and had no qualms about murder. That made him surprisingly valuable.

Someone had looked into SCORPIA's few, known teenage employees, but Alex apparently had a very credible decoy in Johannesburg. Credible enough that MI6 had taken the sightings seriously and increased their presence in the area. That, in turn, seemed to have been enough to convince whoever had been looking – probably Ramos – because the search hadn't dug any deeper. His fingerprints remained disconnected from Alex Rider and would remain that way for as long as they could get away with it. Yassen apparently considered it worth the risk of unwanted attention.

Rift, on the other hand, had been the subject of much more thorough scrutiny. Someone clearly wanted to know who he had been and where he had worked. The files of both of his former pet projects had been dug up as well.

Neither of the two teenagers were still alive. One the man had killed himself. The second had been killed by the police when Rift had used the boy as a distraction. Neither had been close to suitable for Malagosto, SCORPIA's own files had noted as well. Alex could have lived just fine without that detail.

He could also have lived just fine without seeing the photo of his decoy that Yassen had included. It was like seeing the Grief clone all over. With Alex's cover, the decoy looked a lot more like Alex Rider than Alex himself currently did. Watching someone with his face, his name move around half a world away was creepy at best.

A final remark informed Alex that he was under constant surveillance by one of Yassen's people. That did make him feel strangely warm and fuzzy somehow.

The bruise on his face had darkened over night. The swelling in his lips had gone down, but chewing was a careful process. He didn't want to reopen the wound in his mouth, his teeth still ached a little, and his cheek hurt like nobody's business.

He also drew a lot more attention than usual with the bruise. Alex was not in a good mood. If he had been in direct contact with Yassen, he would have told his mentor exactly what he thought about the bright idea of getting Alex to infiltrate the place. As he wasn't, he was sure Yassen could fill in the blanks just fine based on Alex's foul mood.

Alexei was summoned to Ramos' home well into the evening three days later. The only warning he got was the arrival of a car driven by someone that Alex recognised as one of Ramos' underlings. Alex got into the car without argument. He knew that whoever had surveillance duty that day would let Yassen know.

It made sense they would make sure he didn't have advance notice. If he were compromised, the lack of warning would cut down on the sort of things that could be set up.

The security was even worse this time. They didn't bother with a blindfold, but the security check itself had grown even more paranoid, maybe because he was a known SCORPIA associate now. Even just as a pet project. Alex had expected them to confiscate his stolen combat knife and wasn't surprised when they did just that, but this time they made him strip completely and then ran a scanner over every inch of his body.

Only endless hours of training in mastering his body language and Yassen's relentless reminders when he slipped kept him still and indifferent as the scanner passed less than an inch above the implant.

His pulse was racing. Adrenaline kicked in. Any moment he expected some sort of alarm to sound, but the scanner passed on without as much as a beep. He made sure to keep his breathing even through the whole thing and not let out the relieved breath he wanted to.

Alexei himself cleared, they continued with his clothes. If he had carried anything, anything at all, they would have found it. It took well past twenty minutes before they finally pronounced him clear and let him dress again, and by then even Alexei looked marginally unsettled.

Ramos waited for him in the same office as the first time. Either his legitimate office, then, or a very good decoy he used only for specific things. Alex wasn't sure.

"Alexei. Very good. I have a job for you."

Ramos didn't wait for a reply but spread out a set of a dozen photos on the table. The man in them was short and muscular, maybe around forty, and never seemed to be on his own. If he wasn't surrounded by what looked like customers – Alex saw the glimpse of packs of money and small bags of pills in one photo – he was accompanied by girls half his age. There was also a short list of address as well as the names of several clubs.

Alex recognised the location of several of the photos, too. Two had even been taken in the same place, outside a strip club Ramos favoured, too. Alex had ended up sending two of his men to scope it out, as the bouncers had absolutely refused to let someone Alexei's age in. Alex knew his team had put that particular outing in the 'job perk' column as well.

Ramos left the photos and list out until he was sure Alexei had committed the information to memory. Then he packed it away again. It would probably be destroyed the moment Alex was out the door. No evidence that way. Nothing to tie the murder to Ramos in any way. Nothing Alexei could use to pin the blame on anyone but himself.

"He goes by Doberman. Kill him. You have two days."

"You pay? Sir." Alex asked, the most important question for Alexei.

"A thousand American dollars - and your continued freedom. Do it well enough, and there'll be a bonus as well."

Life mattered little for Alexei, but a thousand dollars was a fortune to him. An insult to any Malagosto graduate, but a fortune for a kid like Alexei.

Alex nodded sharply and got up to leave.

"Don't you have any questions?"

Alex paused. He knew what Ramos probably referred to. It was a favourite mind game with SCORPIA board members around new operatives, too. He was waiting for Alexei to ask why the man needed to die. _Because someone paid for it._ That was all the reason a well-trained operative should need. The rest was not their business. Rift would have beaten that into Alexei from the very beginning.

Alex looked a little hesitant. Dredged up the little politeness Alexei possessed. "I would shoot him. You want accident or mugging instead?" he asked with a semblance of reluctant courtesy. "That takes longer. Sir."

Ramos laughed. "Vicious little viper, aren't you? No, shot is fine. You have forty-eight hours. Use them well."

The underling dropped Alex off the same place he had picked him up. Neither spoke on the way. It was well into night by the time Alex was left alone again.

Two days didn't leave time for much in terms of proper reconnaissance but then, someone like Alexei wouldn't really expect it. Alex did let Yassen know. Adams was on the beach the next morning, working out by the place where Alex kept his few belongings locked away. Someone was always watching him. It was oddly reassuring.

Ramos hadn't given him a gun. He clearly expected Alexei to handle things like weapons himself. Another reminder of how just how well SCORPIA handled things for their own assassins. How many of those minor annoyances that proper organisation and contacts took care of before they ever became an issue.

Alex passed close by Adams when the man returned from his locker. He came away from it one money clip richer and a note poorer. His target, his rudimentary plans, any new observations on Ramos' home, even some nicked paint samples to help get the bugs they would need to be as inconspicuous a possible. SCORPIA could turn even interior decorating into something bad. Alex still wasn't sure how they would get those bugs into place with that kind of security, but maybe Yassen had an idea. In return, the three ten-dollar bills hid a note detailing a dead drop that would take place that afternoon.

Alex spent the day checking out the addresses and clubs on the list. He quickly wrote off most of them. One address didn't seem like it had been used in weeks. One left nowhere to hide. It wouldn't have been a problem with a sniper rifle, but Alexei had a Glock 19 – stolen, of course – and that didn't exactly invite long-range shooting. A professional assassin could easily have done it. A professional would also have charged a lot more than a thousand dollars and wouldn't easily have been disposed of the way a teenager could if they became a liability.

One of the clubs, then. Two of the photos had been taken at Wonderland, which had also been on the list of clubs. Two photos taken on separate nights. It would be a gamble to assume the man would be there, but Alex knew it was a test as much as a job. Ramos could have given him a lot more information. He wanted to see what the pet project of a SCORPIA assassin could do.

Alexei was brunette but paid a few bucks for cheap, black hairdye that would wash out again and dyed his hair in the sink in a public bathroom. He picked up the package from Yassen on the way back to the boat that was his temporary home and carefully unpacked it out of sight from any windows.

An earpiece and a small microphone fell out, along with a compact scanner and professionally done versions of Alex's sketches. They were overlaid with the information they had from the blueprints already and even included the additions Alex had that morning. He probably shouldn't have been surprised at that.

Alex used the scanner to check the boat for surveillance before he slipped the earpiece into place, followed by the small microphone. "Cossack?" he said quietly. He stuck to Russian. They couldn't afford any mistakes with his accent.

Yassen's response in the same language came almost immediately. He had to have been waiting. _"Orion. What's your status?"_

It had been four days since their last real contact and Alex was surprised at how much he had missed it. Life as Alexei was busy and stressful, especially now, but it was also lonely. Alexei could go days without ever talking to anyone. The last time he had been alone like that had been Nice and that reminder came with all sorts of bad memories on its own.

"Fine for now. I got the job from Ramos. Security was even worse than last time, though, and he made sure not to let me leave with anything incriminating. The implant is still safe, but getting any sort of surveillance into that place will be a serious problem."

" _I will look into alternatives. Have you decided on an approach for your assignment for him?"_

"The addresses I got were pretty useless, but two of the photos were taken at Wonderland, and it was on the list of clubs, too. I know it's a gamble to assume he'll show up the one night I have left to work with, but with that kind of deadline, it will be pure, dumb luck if I see him no matter what. There's no time for anything. Tomorrow night, maybe, but that'll be past the deadline by the time he shows."

" _A test,"_ Yassen agreed. _"It would not be unlikely that Ramos knows the target will be at the club tonight. You were deliberately given just enough hints to choose that place to watch if you had been taught to pay attention by Rift."_

"Hopefully," Alex said. They would lose out on their chance to infiltrate Ramos' home otherwise. At least through that approach. Part of him knew he should have been happy if they got it wrong. If his target wasn't there at all. Another part of him worried what Yassen's backup approach might be.

" _Your plan, then?"_ Yassen asked.

"There's a gas station and a food market across from the entrance. I can get up on the roof easily. It's right on the limit of the effective range on the Glock I have but it should be doable."

" _Escape?"_

"I'll steal a car. One of the homes I've borrowed has a car locked away in the garage. It shouldn't be reported stolen any time soon. There's parking right behind the roof, it'll offer a decently fast getaway."

As long as no one shot him for looking a little too suspicious, of course. He could imagine people would be a little twitchy right after someone got shot in front of them.

He knew Yassen's lack of objection was the closest he would get to approval. The plan was risky and had to be at least semi-amateurish by nature of Alex's cover. Alex didn't like it any more than Yassen did, and that wasn't even touching the fact that he was about to kill a man in cold blood. His fourth one.

Yes, the man was obviously a drug dealer and either a potential future competitor or annoyance to Ramos or someone who had crossed him, but it was still a living, breathing human being.

Alex was very tempted to call it off. To refuse and tell Yassen to find another way. To ask if they didn't already have the intel they needed. It wasn't like Ramos was a threat to him. If he didn't do the job, Alex could easily disappear, Yassen and Malagosto had taught him as much. Sure, the gun with his fingerprints would end up in government hands, but Alex Rider was already wanted for murder. What was two more?

Ramos wouldn't be a problem. SCORPIA, however … if Alex's refusal meant that they didn't have the intel they needed to complete the assignment, if Ramos got away and worse, took the evidence with him … SCORPIA would not be pleased. They didn't tolerate failure, and they definitely wouldn't take kindly to the sort of failure that would hurt their reputation.

His silence must have been telling. Yassen's voice was little more than a soft sigh when he spoke again.

" _Alex."_

"I know," Alex admitted. "I'm sorry." SCORPIA had succeeded in turning him into a killer. A reluctant one, maybe, but with plenty of blood on his hands already. It didn't change the fact that he was fifteen and didn't have a fraction of Yassen's cold, calculated lack of morals and emotions.

Yassen was silent for a second longer. _"Would it be easier if you knew the crimes he had committed?"_

Someone like that had to have a criminal record, and probably an impressive one, too. Alex knew that. He was still quiet as he considered the question.

Would it? Did it make it any more justifiable or easier to go through with if the man turned out to have killed someone himself? And if it did, what about the times when his target _wasn't_ someone he could argue deserved it?

Laurence Wright hadn't deserved it, MI6 or not. He'd had nothing to do with Alex's situation. He probably hadn't even known Alex existed. Alex had still killed him because he had looked at the situation and picked his own life before that of a stranger.

Did that make him a bad person? Probably. MI6 certainly thought so. SCORPIA's approval kind of implied the same.

Doberman's criminal record was a crutch, it was that simple. If Alex wanted any chance of surviving as one of SCORPIA's operatives, he couldn't afford to rely on that sort of thing. Even the fact that Yassen offered the man's criminal record but did not bring up the offer that Alex didn't have to go through with the murder spoke volumes.

Alex realised quite abruptly that in case, this assignment, Cossack wasn't just his mentor and partner. He was his superior. Yassen was very polite about it, but that didn't change the facts. SCORPIA trained him to be a killer, and Yassen expected him to do his job.

Alex had plans. Right now he was in no position to carry them out, but maybe one day he would be. If he could stomach what he would have to do to get that far. If he just … stopped now, refused to do it, he would probably be killed. He would have killed three people for nothing and helped kill several others by proxy. If he continued … how many others would die before he could do something about SCORPIA?

People, an insidious little voice pointed out, that would have died no matter that. Those people had already been brought to SCORPIA's attention through no fault of Alex's. They would be dead even if Alex wasn't the one to carry it out.

 _No way out._

He had made his choice in Nice, and again in Singapore when he had assassinated the two operatives on the yacht. He would just have to live with it now.

His silence must have carried on for too long, because Yassen spoke again. _"Alex?"_

Alex closed his eyes briefly.

"No, sir," he said firmly and deliberately respectful, not Alex to Yassen but Orion to his superior in charge of the operation. "I'll manage."

It had been so much easier with Yassen there next to him. He hadn't been given a choice, then. Yassen wouldn't have let him refuse. He hadn't even made the decision himself. He had been just another weapon in Yassen's arsenal. Now, like in Nice, when he was on his own … it would be much harder.

Yassen was silent for long seconds. He was probably trying to judge Alex's stability and state of mind. Alex let him. When the man finally spoke, he picked a different topic. Alex supposed that meant he had passed, then. That, or they would have a talk later. Could be either.

" _How do the drawings look?"_

Alex took the time to look the copies over properly. "Really good," he finally said. "It looks like everything is here. It looks accurate to me. No changes needed."

There were still large patches where they had only blueprints and no idea of how accurate those were, but it was a start. Security alone was a big one; heavy and decently competent but not a match against properly trained military units with orders to leave no survivors. The basement was another. If Ramos was smart – and Alex had the definite impression that this was the case – he kept his evidence safely locked away, probably even in a hidden room somewhere. Protected from minor attacks, fire, random burglaries, and other unfortunate things a government agency might decide would be worth a try.

Could there be copies elsewhere? Sure, and Alex didn't doubt there were. That was what interrogation was for. The copies wouldn't be readily available – keeping it on his laptop was asking to have it ferreted out and used by someone else – but there might be copies in a safe deposit box somewhere as an added precaution if anything happened to him. It would be Yassen's job to get that information out of the man. Cossack didn't particularly care for interrogation but he was frighteningly good at it, anyway.

Ramos could lie or refuse to speak, but Alex doubted he would be able to withstand it for long. He didn't have much in the way of scars that Alex had noticed in any of the files. He didn't look like he was used to pain. Alex could say a lot about Dr Three, most of it likely to earn him Yassen's disapproval, but he did have a whole new appreciation for his own pain threshold after two weeks of RTI.

Alex spent a good hour talking with Yassen. Plans for the most parts, along with every tiny detail he could remember from Ramos' home that he hadn't been able to write down. He didn't ask how Yassen's plans for Ramos' second and third in command were progressing. He didn't doubt the man had that completely under control.

Eventually he couldn't postpone any longer. If he wanted to be in place at the earliest time Doberman might arrive at the club, he had to leave. Yassen seemed to know it, too.

" _Do not get overconfident. You will be far more exposed than you would with a sniper rifle."_

Alex laughed sharply in spite of himself. "No danger of that. I'm -"

 _\- Scared,_ he didn't say, though it was true. It felt exposed, so close to his target, so easily within reach if anything went wrong, if someone spotted him and took a shot at him -

"- I'll stay focused. Keep an eye on my surroundings," Alex amended.

Yassen probably knew what he had almost said, anyway. His voice sounded a little like a sigh when he spoke again.

" _Good luck, Alex. Try to be careful."_

The earpiece fell silent. All Alex heard were the muted sounds of the world outside. He felt lonely again. Maybe he should have been used to it as Alexei, but that didn't make it any easier.

Alex cleaned and checked his gun one last time. Covered the bruise on his face the best he could with make-up. Then he took the scanner apart, went for a walk along the water and dropped the pieces unseen a good bit away from each other. The microphone and the earpiece went the same way. The drawings he lit on fire and ground the ashes firmly into the sand. If Ramos asked, those had been Alexei's sketches of the club.

No evidence.

It took two bus rides and a long walk to get to the house with the car that Alex had in mind. He used the time to throw himself into Alexei's mindset. Doberman was not a person, he was just a target. Someone to kill so Alexei's life would be better. It was business, nothing more. A job. That was what Yassen and Nile had tried to teach him often enough. The life of a man who would be dead, anyway. If not by Alex's hand, then by whoever Ramos sent after him instead. Alex, at least, was trained enough to be accurate. It would be quick.

The thought still didn't make him feel any better.

Alex slipped in through the back of the house like he had before. The alarm system was easily circumvented. The garage was large and the main family car was clearly missing, but the second car, a small Subaru, was still there.

Just as important, Alex had found the spare keys on his first visit to the house.

He wore gloves this time. Alexei would have learned his lesson and Alex wanted to leave no evidence behind.

Someone might notice the car leaving but with some luck, no one would report it to the police. There were neighbours but most were families with children. They would be in the middle of their usual evening routines and hopefully too busy to care about one garage door that opened.

Alex made sure all evidence of his visits was gone, then stepped into the garage and locked the door to the house behind him. He didn't want to invite someone else to break in as well.

He had a bag with him with a change of clothes. He pushed it under the front passenger seat, still within easy reach but mostly out of sight. The gun got tugged into the back of his jeans. A little awkward but it would work. Alex himself looked a little too young to be driving, but if he kept to the speed limits and didn't draw attention to himself, he hoped no one would pay attention to the driver of one more car in already crowded Miami. The lack of daylight would help as well.

Alex took a moment to gather his thoughts. Then he fastened his seatbelt with the same care that Ian Rider had hammered into him.

 _No way out._

It had been a few months since Alex had last been behind the wheel but he remembered his lessons just fine. The garage door opened smoothly and Alex left, doing his best to look like he belonged there. He had made sure the garage door closed again. It didn't hurt to be polite.

Alex took a detour to the club. The small parking lot he had spotted was only half full, and Alex found a spot that was a little away from everything but easy to get out of again. Time to look like he belonged there and wasn't suspicious in any way. He still had time, so he crossed the road and had junk food for dinner, like any teenage boy out on his own would. If the spot he picked left him with a good view of the club, well, that was just lucky coincidence. Yassen would not approve of his choice of food, but Yassen had made him go undercover as a street kid, so Alex personally felt Yassen's opinions on junk food could kindly go screw themselves.

Alex had also kept a close eye on the spot he had chosen to take the shot from, and he waited until there was a lull in traffic and the people outside before he returned to the parking lot, looked around for any witnesses, and easily climbed the flat roof. It was dirty but then, so was Alex. His dark clothes blended in with his surroundings and he settled in the corner that gave him the best view of the entrance to the club across the street.

There were guests already. Not too many, since it was a normal weekday and still pretty early in the evening, but Alex couldn't risk showing up any later.

It was an awkward spot to stay in and he would have to be careful not to get seen, but he didn't have much of a choice. He couldn't risk slipping into the same trance he had done behind the sniper rifle, either. There was no Yassen to watch his back this time, and while Alex had sort of learned how to pay attention to his surroundings and still stay in that sort of meditative state, he still hadn't mastered it.

It was one of those things Yassen still tried to teach him. Alex honestly didn't think it was made any easier by the fact that he was a teenager, with all the hormones and issues that implied. He had enough of a sense of realism to accept that. Maybe he would learn with enough practice. Maybe he would just have to grow up a little more. Let his brain get a little calmer.

At least the weather was dry. And warm. It could have been a lot worse. Brecon Beacons and Yassen's Russian safe-house had both taught him that.

Alex had a couple of false positives, just similar enough to send adrenaline pumping before he realised it wasn't actually his target. He had to stay low as well, as far into the shadows as he could get and as far down as he could and still keep an eye on things.

It wasn't comfortable, not by a long shot, and he would be sore in the morning. The edge of the roof dug into his side and his legs ached. He would still be able to run just fine but it really wouldn't be comfortable once his muscles got the chance to cool down and rest.

Guilt had settled heavily and just as uncomfortable, a lump of lead in his stomach that was impossible to forget and which made his gun feel unnaturally heavy. Three murders. This would be his fourth. He suspected Yassen hoped it would get easier for him in time. The worst part was that the man was right. Alex hadn't grown desensitized but he was horribly aware that it had become a little easier every time.

 _It's not as hard as you think, to kill someone._

Nile's words whispered through his mind, insidious and unwanted.

 _As easy as breathing._

He didn't want it to be, and if the guilt meant he was still human, then he hoped it never went away.

In the end he spent close to four hours on that rooftop, crouched down and almost perfectly still. The roof had lost of last warmth of day and the chill of the night had started to seep in by the time Doberman finally arrived.

He wasn't alone. Three other men were with him, laughing and moving like friends out for a night in town. Not entirely sober. A little slower than usual and very relaxed.

There were a few people outside smoking and a couple of bouncers by the door but no one that would be in Alex's way. Doberman's three friends … as long as none of them moved at the wrong time, he should be able to avoid them, too, though he knew there was a very real possibility one of them might be hit by a stray bullet.

It was different than Nice and still the same in too many ways. Still a rooftop, still the wait, still a target that looked uncomfortably human. This time Alex didn't have a scope but he was a lot closer, too. He also had a lot less time to move in.

With his target confirmed, Alex brought up his Glock and shifted to get the best angle. He didn't have time to think. He didn't _want_ to have the time to think. Aim, focus -

Doberman shifted, partially turned to say something to his friends, and Alex pulled the trigger. He fired twice more even as he knew the first one had hit. One head-shot, two chest. Just to be sure. He couldn't risk having their one chance to get him close to Ramos go wrong because of a bulletproof vest.

Doberman crumbled. Someone screamed.

Alex scrambled to his feet and ran. Across the roof, down the same way he had arrived, more an easy jump than a climb after months of training.

Someone appeared from the building as he landed. It looked like one of the staff. "Hey, kid!"

He did not sound happy and Alex crossed the parking lot in a quick sprint before the man had time to do anything about it.

Unlock the door, into the car, turn the key, forget the damn seatbelt for now -

Someone else shouted now, too, almost muted by the car. Alex didn't hang around to hear what they wanted but drove off as fast as he dared. He glanced up and saw several people in the rear-view mirror staring after him. The car was definitely compromised.

His pulse raced. Adrenaline had washed away any soreness from his hours on the roof, and his senses felt hyper-alert. Every glimpse of light was a possible police car, every car was a potential pursuer. It took conscious effort to keep to the speed limits and not look suspicious in any way.

Alex wiped down and disposed of the gun well away from the scene of the crime and, further away, of the clothes as well. He changed in the car to the new set he had brought along. He disposed of the gloves, too, but put new ones on in their place. The car itself he parked where it wouldn't draw too much attention and wiped it down completely as well before he left. He wasn't going back to the house he had stolen it from, not a chance. Hopefully his precautions would be enough.

Alex washed his hair four times in a public bathroom to get the dye out completely. His hands stopped trembling sometime during the second wash, and by the time he left the bathroom, he had stopped seeing Doberman collapse on the ground, over and over and over again. At least it had been too dark and everything had happened too fast to really see the blood and damage.

He slept lightly that night, curled up in a corner and ready to snap into full awareness at the slightest sound. Yassen had tried to teach him that, too, but he had never managed very well. Apparently all he needed was the right motivation.

He was exhausted that morning but he carried on as usual. He used make-up to cover up the worst of the bruise on his face again. He wasn't about to draw attention to himself.

Doberman was dead. It was just a matter of time before Ramos contacted him again.

Their original plan had been to slip in some surveillance when Alex returned. With the level of security Ramos had, they would need to rethink that now.

Danube kept the manor under surveillance but it was limited what they could get from a distance and how close they could risk getting.

Alex wasn't sure when Ramos would make his move but he felt on edge the whole day, not just because he saw the blue of police uniforms out of the corner of his eye every time he blinked but also the restless wait for something to happen.

Pick Alexei up immediately before the boy could start to feel ignored and do something stupid on impulse, or watch and wait to see what the police found and how well the boy had covered his tracks and to remind him of his place a little?

Ramos apparently settled for the latter option. It was past noon on the second day before a car stopped next Alex. The driver was the same as the one who had picked Alex up when Ramos had brought him in for the job.

Alexei slipped into the passenger seat without a word. Neither spoke on the drive and Alex spent most of it staring out the window.

Security was just as brutal as the previous times. The fact that Alexei had carried out his assignment apparently made no difference to them. He still got to strip and wait for them to scan not just him but everything he carried with him. Any bugs he carried would have had to have been left in the hallway before the security check, and they wouldn't do much good there, nor would he have any chance to actually leave them.

Bald was there again to escort him through the hallways. Third time through, Alex still picked up a number of new details to pass on to Yassen. It wasn't necessarily anything important but the more information they had, the better. They never knew what might come in handy at some point.

The room they finally ended up in was the same office as the previous two times. Ramos hadn't arrived yet. Alex settled down in the expensive-looking chair, crossed his arms, and stared out the window. Psychological intimidation, probably. Make him uncomfortable. Take away any confidence he would have felt after a successful job. That was probably another reason why security had made him strip every time, too. A good way to unsettle someone, especially a kid.

He waited quite a while in uncomfortable silence with Bald as an unmoving guard before Ramos finally appeared, Tattoo following behind like an obedient puppy.

"Alexei." Ramos sounded pleased as he settled behind his desk, all comfortable ease and smug satisfaction. "Excellent job."

He didn't look twice at the bruise on Alex's face. It was covered by make-up, sure, but still clearly visible up close and in light as strong as in Ramos' office.

Alex watched him with the wariness that was second nature to Alexei. "Thank you. Sir," he added belatedly.

Ramos pushed an envelope across the desk. Alex picked it up and glanced suspiciously at Ramos before he opened it. A small stack of one hundred-dollar bills stared back at him. His quick count of them gave him the expected thousand dollars.

Alexei nodded once, cautiously, and slipped the envelope into his pocket. Alex felt dirty. Something about the cash made it real in a way SCORPIA's transfers to his bank account didn't. Blood money.

Ramos placed a small pack on the desk between them. "As promised, the reward for a job well done."

The reward turned out to be a phone. New, sleek, expensive. A silent reminder of how comfortable life could be if he followed Ramos' orders. How rewarding his cooperation would be. It probably also tracked his movements but Alex didn't really care about that part. They had been careful not to ruin his cover. Anything Alex would need to do, he could easily do even with something to report his location.

It was a generous bonus to someone like Alexei, but it was more for Ramos' sake than anything else. The man knew where Alexei had been before, surveillance had ensured that, but a phone would be much easier now that Alexei had proven his worth. Keep an eye on his location and make it easy to contact him with any new jobs.

"I'll have another job for you soon. Don't lose that phone," Ramos said pointedly.

Definitely something to track him. Alex just nodded. It was an obvious dismissal and he followed Bald out the door again. They stopped to get Alex's bag from security, and then Bald handed him over to the driver again.

No orders were needed. The man just drove off. One job complete, and Alex still didn't have a way to get surveillance into the house. Either Yassen came through with his promise of 'alternatives' or they would have to go in blind.

* * *

A/N 2: There's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to James Rollins' Sigma series in the previous chapter that I forgot to mention. If you've read the books, you can probably safely consider this AU.

Next: Sometimes Alex misses MI6. At least they treated him like a kid.


	19. Professional Courtesies

A/N 1: We hit 100k words. Damn. Thank you for still reading and for your patience with this beast.

* * *

It took a week for the last of the bruising on his face to go away. Alex got a lot of practice with his make-up. He could have done just fine without that and just drawn a bit more attention, but he was sure Crux would appreciate that her lessons came to good use.

No one had shown up to arrest him. No one had connected Doberman's murder with one random street kid that kept to himself and didn't even look like he was homeless. Interest in the man's death died down soon enough and Alex breathed a little easier. Sniper rifles were one thing. Using a handgun, even from a distance, felt a lot more exposed than he would have liked.

Alexei continued his life. Kept his new phone on him. Used some of the money from his first job on a decent fake ID, a fact that he was sure would get back to Ramos. Let him think that the illegal alien had decided to make himself look a little less illegal. Let Alexei show off some of the intelligence and resourcefulness that had caught Rift's attention in the first place.

Yassen – or more likely someone from Yassen's teams – had kept an eye on police records, too. The boy they strongly suspected to be Ramos' previous pet killer vanished without a trace in late April. Maybe he had run. More likely Ramos had disposed of him, since the police had started to take an interest in the kid. It was the same boy Alex had seen shoot a man during those weeks when he had established his cover. How long had he worked for Ramos? A few months? He hadn't been used to killing, Alex had been able to tell that much. The boy's file put him at sixteen. Even if he wasn't dead yet, he wouldn't live to see seventeen. Lives were expendable to Ramos. He had a replacement now.

Alex was summoned for his second job two weeks after Doberman's murder. He still didn't get to keep the intel but this time he did get a little more information and a longer deadline.

"Make it look like a mugging gone wrong," Ramos said. "You have a week."

Alexei nodded sharply. "Pay, sir?"

"The usual." Alex supposed that meant the thousand dollars. "With a bonus if you manage well enough."

Maybe Alex would use that bit of payment for a passport to match his new ID. Something Alexei would definitely have done.

Alex passed on the information to Yassen the next morning. Deon Wills, Dee to most people, was a dealer who had grown a little too twitchy recently. Ramos suspected him of having grown a little too friendly with the Miami police. It wasn't much Wills would be able to give them and certainly nothing that was a threat to Ramos – he would have hired a proper contract killer otherwise – but it was a matter of principle.

There was an address for Wills' home and several of his favourite spots to work from. Alex was reminded of the man he had seen shot by that boy the weeks he had spent doing reconnaissance. That had looked like a mugging gone wrong, too. That was the way it had been reported. Alex had checked.

Deon Wills would be the fifth person Alex would kill.

Alex made a quiet promise to never lose count. It wasn't a healthy way to handle it, he was sure, but was there really _any_ healthy way to handle murder? Yassen wouldn't approve, but Yassen didn't need to know. It would be Alex's way to remember what he was fighting for. To keep a little bit of his humanity.

He wondered if his father had done the same. Yassen had lost count a long time ago, but Yassen had killed a lot more people than John Rider ever did.

Alex remembered with a sinking feeling that he was catching up to Hunter's number of assassinations fast. Less skilled assignments than Hunter's had been, but they were still assassinations. Murders.

He had already replaced the Glock he had used to kill Doberman. He had disposed of immediately afterwards and stolen a replacement. Now he would need a new one again soon.

It helped to focus on the practical things. Slip into Alexei's mindset and the assassin's way of thinking that Yassen had hammered into him.

Alex spent five days doing reconnaissance. Ramos had been right. Wills was a twitchy man and a little too friendly with the local police. Alex watched him for hours, watched customers come and go, watched his contacts, watched what Alex was almost sure was an undercover officer talk with Wills for a lot longer than any customer would.

Yassen had left the job in Alex's hands. It left him with a weird feeling between vague pride and abandonment.

Yassen trusted Alex to handle a simple assassination on his own. Alex was a graduate of Malagosto, a SCORPIA operative, and Yassen's hand-picked apprentice, and he had been trained to handle a lot more complicated assignments on his own with no support.

This was what SCORPIA's assassins _did._ They worked alone. Yassen trusted his skills enough to focus on the other parts of the operation, safe in the knowledge that Alex would do what was required without any need for help.

He still felt abandoned on a level he couldn't entirely explain. He had been alone in Nice, but that had been graduation. That was always a solo assignment. Yassen had been right next to him in Singapore. Doberman … Alex had done it on his own, but Yassen had talked him through the plan. Made sure Alex had it under control and hadn't missed anything.

This time, he trusted Alex to do it himself, all of it. Maybe it was a silent reminder that Yassen wouldn't always be there for him. That he would have to be able to do that sort of thing on his own on more than a theoretical level. Maybe it was proof to SCORPIA that Alex was still able to work on his own without Yassen there to hold his hand.

SCORPIA considered Alex an adult. Right there and then, Alex wished they didn't. Right there and then, Alex would have given anything for MI6's hypocritical insistence on sending him off to do an adult's job armed only with a child's harmless toys. SCORPIA expected him to handle any problem that might show up in a permanent way. MI6 had refused him a gun and given him gadgets instead.

He missed Smithers. He missed the exploding ear stud and the metal-eating zit cream. He had repeatedly come a lot closer to death with MI6 than he had with SCORPIA so far, but he would have been happy to trade even that now.

Alex took an afternoon to feel sorry for himself, because it wasn't like anyone else was going to. Then he pulled himself back together and went to work, because there wasn't anything else he could do.

Alexei went after Deon Wills in the late evening on the sixth day. The man had routines. The times varied a little but he followed the same routes home. If Alex watched closely enough to see him leave, he would know where the man would be.

Wills was armed but it would take him precious seconds to draw a gun, and Alex didn't need nearly that long to take the shot.

The face that stared back at him in the mirror that evening was Alexei, all hard lines and cold eyes and bitter anger at the world. It would be the first time Alex would be that close to a target. Even Doberman had been a fair distance away.

It would have been easier if Yassen had been there to remind him it was an order, that he didn't have a choice, that this was necessary for the operation, but Yassen was busy on the other side of Miami. Probably on purpose, too.

Alex's favourite excuse to himself – _it was an order, I didn't have a choice_ – was a crutch and he couldn't afford to keep it. It wouldn't always be there. He had made his choice when he killed Laurence Wright in Nice. He had done the same every time he had picked up a weapon and killed another person. The fact that he'd had orders didn't make it any less of his responsibility.

There had been strict orders, but Alex Rider had been the one to take the shot. He had been the one to pull the trigger. Someone else would have done it if he hadn't, but that didn't change the fact that he had done it.

He hadn't known what he had managed to get himself into in Nice. Now he knew. He had four murders to his name already. No one was there to force him now. No one else had a gun aimed at Wills. No one had a gun aimed at Alex himself in case he failed.

Yassen had given him full responsibility and left him alone to make the choice … because SCORPIA considered him an adult. Because this was his life now. Because he was John Rider's son and he would be tested relentlessly until they were sure of him.

Yassen wanted him to survive. Yassen had known what Alex's choice would be, probably better than Alex himself did.

 _No way out._

Alex picked up the gun and left.

* * *

Deon Wills was a careful man but not careful enough. If Alex didn't have strict orders to make it look like a mugging gone wrong, he could have killed the man days ago. If he'd had access to a sniper rifle, he could have handled it that first day. If he had been Alex – Orion – and not Alexei.

As it was, Alex waited in the shadows of a building as Wills passed by. It was close to the man's home. Close to midnight on a normal weekday, it was mostly quiet, too. Traffic and the sounds from the buildings, low music somewhere and a car alarm that went off briefly and a barking dog – it sounded safe. Normal. Maybe that was why Wills wasn't as careful as he should have been. He was almost home.

Alex stepped out of the shadows after Wills, gun already in hand. There was no need to draw it out. The least Alex could do was make it quick.

He whistled sharply. The man turned around faster than Alex had expected – not quite as at ease as he seemed to be – but it didn't make a difference. There was a glimpse of recognition in Wills' eyes – less Alex in specific and more the fact that a child was pointing a gun at him – but he had no time to speak before Alex pulled the trigger.

The first shot hit the heart, Alex made sure of it. The following three, added to make it look like bullets fired in a panic, still hit the chest but wouldn't have killed. Not immediately, anyway. Maybe the first shot would look a little too competent if the police looked too closely at things but Alex hoped they wouldn't. Just one more dead drug dealer.

Alex crossed the distance fast. The blood on the ground left no doubt that the man hadn't worn a bulletproof vest. Alex still checked his pulse with gloved hands before he took the man's wallet – make it look a little more real – and ran.

He had picked the place deliberately, somewhere with multiple escape routes and frequent enough trouble that hopefully no one would come poking around immediately. Call the police, sure, but stay clear themselves so they wouldn't risk getting shot as well.

Alex was in excellent shape already, and Alexei had spent a lot of time running. Even if someone followed him, they would have a hard time catching up. Down two streets, then to the left, through an alley and through a gate with a broken lock that no one had cared to fix yet. He kept up his relentless pace and ignored the looks he got, weaving his way past obstacles with the ease that Malagosto and Yassen had hammered into him.

He was three miles away from the scene of the murder before he slowed down to a jog instead. Another half a mile and he found a place to dispose of the gun with no witnesses around. The gloves got disposed of another mile away. Half a mile past that and Alex took off the extra t-shirt he had worn and disposed of that as well, followed by the wallet. The money he shoved in the first donation box he came across. Something in him recoiled at the thought of spending them himself.

It took seven miles and a large detour before Alex was back to his usual haunts. It was well past midnight by then, but with adrenaline still pumping, Alex wasn't the least bit tired. He also didn't particularly want to fall asleep. He hadn't slept well after Doberman. He doubted he would sleep much better this time.

Alex considered his options. Then he grabbed his thin jacket and a bottle of water and headed back out. A fast walk and two picked locks gave him access to a fire escape. A quick climb and another picked lock later found him on a rooftop above Miami. It wasn't good for stargazing and it was a little risky but it was quiet and Alex needed that now.

He used the jacket for a pillow, brought out the phone from Ramos and settled down on that rooftop to play mindless games until the first hazy light of dawn appeared and the battery was almost dead.

If Ramos wanted a teenager, Ramos would get a teenager, and Alex Rider took the brief chance to remind himself that whatever else SCORPIA might want him to be, he was fifteen years old and sometimes all he had left to prove it was the sudden, mad urge to act his age.

* * *

The second time Alex went to get his payment, he did so carrying Yassen's definition of an alternative to conventional surveillance.

He couldn't carry anything obvious. It would be spotted immediately and Alex would be in serious trouble. The 'alternative' had arrived in a heavily protected, sterile box along with a set of surgical tools.

Alex had known he was in trouble the moment he had seen Yassen with Adams and Aranda, one of Sagitta's two trained medics. Yassen had summoned him to an empty rental home the evening after the second assignment. Now Alex knew why.

Alex spotted the tray with tools and the table that had been covered in white plastic and felt his mouth go dry. "They'll notice if I suddenly had surgery. If they follow their pattern, I'll get my payment in a day or two. It'll never heal in time."

"They will notice surgery," Yassen agreed. "They will care little for one more knife wound on a street kid that already gets into fights on a depressingly regular basis. The device is meant to be used as a subdermal implant. The cut will be large enough to put it into place."

There was a combat knife on the tray, too, Alex noted distantly. Probably sterilized as well.

He opened his mouth to argue, to ask if Yassen was kidding, but closed it again before he could. Yassen didn't joke around about anything, and definitely not work. He crossed the room to get his first look at the bug. Large and broad but flat enough not to be noticed once it was underneath his skin. "What does it do?" he asked instead.

Adams answered the question. "It targets their wireless networks, sir. We've got some possibilities for bugs we can actually leave behind, too, but that thing there will give us a good idea of activities in the house. It's not clever enough to crack complicated security on its own and in that short of an amount of time, but it can do smaller things. Ramos himself might not keep you for long, but security will. It'll give it plenty of time to work."

"They'll find it." They had to, with the sort of security Ramos had.

"They won't, sir." Adams sounded completely sure. "The descriptions of security you gave us and their lack of reaction to your implant – they would spot most things, but not something of that calibre. It was made to be undetectable. That thing there is heavily classified and costs about the same as a brand new SUV just to produce. The American government guards it viciously. It'll hurt like a bitch, sir, and it'll need to be surgically removed again afterwards, but it's the only thing that we can reliably get inside and not get you killed in the process."

"Just try not to damage it," Aranda spoke up. "A punch won't break it, but try not to get shot or stabbed there. It'll be a pain to clean the bits and pieces out of you."

"Thank you," Alex said with the most sincere sarcasm he could manage. "That's very reassuring." If he got shot or stabbed, that thing would be the least of his worries. Unless … "Wait, are we talking 'picking bits of plastic out with me with tweezers'-level or more like 'exploding battery' here?"

The awkward silence that followed was all the answer Alex needed.

"Oh, hell no."

"Sort of … in the middle of the two options?" Adams suggested. "Just – try not to damage it too much."

Alex looked at Yassen and got an arched eyebrow in return. He wasn't even sure why he bothered to argue. He knew Yassen well enough to tell when the man had made up his mind.

Alex sighed. Took off his shirt and turned to Yassen. "I assume you need my reaction to the cut to look real, but do I at least get a shot of anaesthetic afterwards, before you start digging around?"

He could have sworn Yassen looked amused for a second. "Of course. You need to stay still enough to work on."

How reassuring. Alex finished undressing and held out his arms as Aranda put on a pair of gloves and disinfected his lower back thoroughly. If Yassen did the cut – and Alex was sure he would, the man wouldn't trust someone else with Alex's safety unless he had to – then it would be exactly where he intended it to, but it never hurt to be careful.

Aranda had already prepared a syringe of something and glanced at Yassen. "All set, sir."

Yassen nodded. The slight clink of metal against metal as he picked up the knife from the tray sounded unnervingly loud to Alex. The anticipation of pain was almost worse than the actual cut was likely to be.

Yassen touched the edge very gently to Alex's side, a bit above his hip. "We need the cut to be here. A credible location if you almost managed to dodge a knife aimed at your back. I will make it quick. Try to react naturally to it."

Alex rolled his eyes. "Just get it over with."

He got no warning, only a flicker of movement before sharp pain cut across his side and he instinctively jerked away with a choked curse. It took several seconds for the rest of the pain to set in – the sting and throb of the cut to join that initial sharp pain – and when he looked down, he saw the tail end of the cut had tapered off into a fine, thin line of blood as he had twisted away.

Yassen had done an excellent job. It looked like he had only just managed to dodge the worst of an attack aimed at his back.

He could already feel the blood start to flow. The deepest part of the cut had to be deep enough to look real.

Aranda stepped closer to get a good look at things. He wiped the blood away carefully and prodded the skin a few times. Alex bit back a hiss. Then the man nodded. "That'll do just fine, sir."

A handful of small injections later and the local anaesthetic kicked in. Alex felt the sharp throb of the cut slowly begin to fade. He had long since lost any sense of modesty he had left. He was grateful for that now, naked in front of three grown men as they wired him up for surveillance.

Alex spent an hour unmoving on the table while Aranda got the implant settled right and Adams tested and calibrated it. They couldn't risk stitches since Alexei wasn't really in a position to get medical assistance for anything that wasn't life threatening, so they made do with a line of plasters that he would have to change himself as needed, and a bandage that would stay until the wound had stopped bleeding. It would heal miserably and scar a lot more than it should have with proper stitches, but Alex would just have to deal with that. Deal with it and trust that Adams was right about the implant. And try not to get shot or stabbed. That was kind of important, too.

Yassen had at least been right that he didn't look much like the Alex Rider MI6 had known anymore. Almost a year of growing up joined by six weeks of living on the streets as Alexei had changed him. He was already taller than Yassen, if only by about an inch. He hadn't even noticed it until he had a knife pressed against his side and realised he was tall enough to see eye to eye with Yassen. Three inches or so taller than he had been when Yassen's doctor in Moscow had examined him. If SCORPIA's doctor had been right, he had another couple of inches to go. His father had been six feet even.

Alex had filled in some, too, though he knew life as Alexei had left him a little thinner than he should be. What he did have was mostly muscle, Yassen's relentless daily workouts had seen to that. He doubted he would be able to pass for a girl for more than another year at the most without a lot more effort put into the disguise.

It was only when they were absolutely sure that the implant worked perfectly that Alex could finally get dressed again … except when he picked up the pile of clothes, his t-shirt had gone missing.

He looked up just in time to catch the replacement t-shirt that Yassen threw his way. Alex frowned and gave the thing a suspicious once-over. It was a little heavy and looked worn and a bit dirty, like most of Alexei's things. Mostly it looked normal.

He looked back up at Yassen, the unvoiced question in his expression.

"Ballistic fabric," Yassen replied. "Bullet-resistant to a degree. It offers less protection than body armour would, but it's the best protection available that will not draw unwanted attention."

Like his ski suit, just a lot thinner. Without the extra padding, it would probably hurt like hell if he did get shot, too, but that was still a lot better than the alternative. When he examined the t-shirt more closely, there was nothing that gave away the added protection. It looked like regular fabric, just a little thicker than usual.

Alex put it on and felt a little safer for it. Safer, and a little warm and fuzzy even if he would never admit that. A small reminder that while Alex was still on his own for a lot of it, Yassen hadn't forgotten about him.

Ramos contacted him the following morning. Just long enough after the murder to make sure the police had no leads, Alex assumed.

He drew on every lesson from Yassen to stay calm as Ramos' security people checked him over. If he looked suspicious in any way, he would be in a world of trouble. They did pause at the brand new cut but carried on when the scan came up clear. He supposed it wasn't that much different from the large bruise on his face he had sported earlier. At least the cut had faded to a dull ache overnight, and he only really noticed it now when he moved too much around. He was very careful not to tear it open.

Yassen and Sagitta were somewhere beyond the manor grounds, because even Yassen had admitted that the implant was a serious risk, but there was no guarantee they would know something had gone wrong, much less that they would get to him in time.

Alexei handled security with the same grace as usual – with a glower but no attempt to get in their way. He knew better than that. If he had carried weapons, they would have found them, but while his heart hammered so loudly he was sure they could tell, their scan revealed nothing.

His pulse raced from anticipation and fear and adrenaline, and it was all he could do to stand still, but finally they waved him on. They kept his knives and bag as usual, but that was it. He was through. Ramos might still have something to check for bugs and similar but he was past the first danger now.

Alex forced himself to calm down as Nose led him to Ramos' office. Calm. Steady. Nothing suspicious. Nothing unusual.

Ramos looked pleased. Alex assumed that meant good news. Last he checked, the police hadn't had any leads in Wills' murder. Ramos' satisfied expression probably meant they still didn't.

No one gestured at Alex to sit down. Ramos just handed him an envelope. "Excellent work, Alexei. No witnesses, no evidence – you were taught well."

Alexei gave him a suspicious look and counted the money. Something about Ramos' behaviour made him wait for the other shoe to drop, but the money added up as it should and no one seemed about to pull a weapon on him. He didn't think Ramos had decided he was a liability yet, or that they had found out about the bug he carried.

Ramos seemed to be waiting for something. Alex found out what a moment later.

Someone knocked once on the door and entered without waiting for a response. An unfamiliar man came into view and stopped next to the desk. Ramos gestured towards Alex.

"Patel, this is Alexei. Alexei, your tutor. I promised you a reward if you did well. Patel here is a contract killer. Much like Rift was. He has agreed to provide you with a few lessons today."

Alex met the man's eyes. Dark brown eyes, black hair, no distinct features – he could have been from anywhere, perfectly anonymous like a good assassin should be.

Alex could see the same sort of analysis take place behind Patel's unreadable expression in the same brief moments … and the almost invisible glimpse of recognition that followed.

Alex had no idea of who the man was – he wasn't SCORPIA, Alex was almost sure of that – but he had obviously recognised Alex Rider on sight. Alex tensed and waited for Patel to speak. If he told Ramos … Alex had no weapons and no easy way out. If they got even a hint that something was wrong …

But Patel didn't speak. Just nodded slightly. "I have been paid for five hours." Even his accent was unremarkable. His English wasn't quite the accent of a native speaker but Alex couldn't have even begun to guess what language he did speak as his first one.

Was it really that simple, though? Patel had been paid to teach Ramos' most recent pet killer as a reward. He hadn't been paid enough to care who the kid was or what he might be up to.

Ramos raised an eyebrow. Alex realised he was waiting for an answer. "Thank you, sir."

Ramos nodded, satisfied. "You don't seem to care about anything but money, but lessons would serve you well in the future." He glanced at Patel. "Any particular plans?"

"Shooting range first," Patel said, eyes never leaving Alex. "I would like to see what I have to work with."

Alex never looked away. "Yes, sir." It didn't hurt to be polite, and Alexei would have been reminded of Rift, a man who had been brutally clear on the topic of respect and politeness.

Ramos nodded and looked pleased. "Excellent. Off you go, then," he said, dismissing them in favour of whatever else was on his list that day. Alex got the clear impression that both of them were nothing more than weapons to him. Something to bring out and use as needed, but which ranked only slightly above the furniture.

Alex followed Patel to the man's car, a small family car just as utterly unremarkable as he himself was. He didn't have much of a choice and he knew it. The man had recognised him but he hadn't given Alex away to Ramos. That had to mean something, didn't it? Though there was no guarantee it was anything good.

Alex did notice that the man kept a clear distance between them. Enough to give him advance warning and time to react if Alex tried anything. Patel treated him like a legitimate threat. Alex was so used to being underestimated because of his age that it felt a little unnerving.

Yassen had to be watching through a scope, hidden somewhere beyond the manor grounds. All it would take would be one small hand signal and Patel would be dead. Their operation might get a bit more complicated then, but they had some intel already. That would just have to be enough.

"I have no intentions of hurting you, Alex Rider," Patel spoke quietly. It was barely a murmur, so low that only Alex's close proximity let him hear it at all. "If nothing else, I'm certain that Cossack will stop at nothing to hunt me down should I kill you."

True. But then, Alex would still be dead, and he didn't particularly want to die, SCORPIA property or not. He would have to make up his mind fast, though, or someone would get suspicious … or Yassen would take matters into his own hands.

They stopped by the car. Alex was out of time. With nothing else to go on, he went with his instincts.

 _Okay. Under control,_ he signed with one hand, so slight and fast it could have been mistaken for a small flex of his fingers.

He had to trust that Patel wanted to survive just as much as Alex himself did. That whatever Alex might be worth wasn't enough to make up for the fact that it would send Cossack after him, too. Yassen Gregorovich had a towering reputation for a reason.

Alex got into the car. It might be a mistake but it was too late to change his mind now.

"Where are we going?"

"Shouldn't you have asked that before you got in the car?" Patel commented but continued without waiting for an answer. "Shooting range. We don't want to draw attention. I was paid to give you lessons and I intend to do that. I know SCORPIA must have taught you but if you've been undercover on the streets for this long, you would probably like the practice."

Alex nodded. It wasn't even predictability. He couldn't imagine it would be any different for any other professional assassin. Their lives depended on their skills. "How did you recognise me?" he asked.

Patel glanced at him. "A wise assassin keeps track of others in the same line of work. You've caused quite a stir in some circles. A child MI6 special operations agent, Hunter's son at that, turned Cossack's apprentice and the youngest assassin Malagosto has ever produced? Your employers are quite pleased with you. Ramos cares little for that sort of thing. One assassin is as good as any other. He is familiar enough with SCORPIA, but even then one operative is the same as any other. Better than most but interchangeable. I think Ramos hopes to keep you. I have spoken out against his use of children for this work before, but ..." Patel's philosophical little shrug conveyed the lack of success he'd had. "Children are cheap, stupid labour, and he likes the unpredictability of it. It was bound to come back to bite him eventually."

Just like it had for MI6. Just like it had for the FBI, if in a slightly different way. Just like it would for SCORPIA if Alex had anything to say about it.

Maybe he was screwed, but he'd be damned if he would let it happen to someone else if he could stop it. He wanted the words 'teenage agent' to send a shiver down the spine of every Blunt or Jones or Byrne out there. He wanted them to hear the words and remember what they had created in Alex Rider and know that whatever they wanted to use a child for in that kind of world, it wouldn't be worth it.

"Maybe kids are stupid," Alex finally muttered, "but you adults are the ones who should know better."

Patel glanced at him. "You don't consider yourself an adult?" Bland, idle curiosity. Alex didn't believe it for a second.

"I'm fifteen." His answer was just as bland as the question had been.

"You've killed."

He had. An assassin too young to vote. Too young to drive, to marry, to enlist. He wasn't even old enough to buy alcohol. He didn't want to consider how much blood he would have on his hands by the time he reached that age, assuming he would even live that long.

Alex just shrugged in response. He was a teenager, he figured he could get away with it.

Did he consider himself an adult? Not really. He was a kid in a world he had no place in, and with a few exceptions, none of the adults around him seemed to care all that much about that. In a couple of years, he actually would be an adult. Either he would somehow still be alive and the only time people would care that he had been dragged into that sort of world at fourteen would be to point out how talented he was ... or he would be dead and just a failed experiment to them. Either way.

The rest of the drive took place in silence. It was less uncomfortable that Alex had expected. He was alone in a car with a trained killer, sure. He was also trained himself, and Patel knew perfectly well what the consequences would be if Alex got harmed.

Alex was probably safer in that car than he had been in his weeks on the streets.

It was a long drive to the range to Alex, still not used to the American idea of distance. It was a small one, and this time of day there weren't too many other people there. Quiet. Private. Patel had to have picked it carefully for just those reasons.

Yassen appeared at the range half an hour into their practice. One second they were alone, the next he was there. Yassen just watched for several long seconds. Then he nodded, apparently satisfied. "I will have words with your temporary instructor. You will practice while we talk."

Alex nodded, careful to be respectful in front of outside company. "Yes, sir."

He managed to go through a number of paper targets while the two talked. He never entirely let them out of sight but he did his best to spend his time on the range well, too. Who knew when he would get the chance again.

It took half an hour before anything new happened. Yassen said something. Patel nodded. An envelope changed hands.

Yassen looked as emotionless as ever when he returned to Alex but Alex knew him well enough to see the glint of satisfaction in his eyes.

"Intel?" Alex guessed. There wasn't much else Yassen could really use from the man right now.

"He has been regularly employed by Ramos' organisation for several years. He is a practical man with little loyalty beyond his assignments. He had no wish to get involved in one of SCORPIA's operations."

"You paid him?" Alex didn't even know why he was surprised.

"Of course. We are all professionals."

Patel seemed sensible. He would know how make himself scarce without drawing attention to it. The man in question reappeared a few moments later.

"I expect he's trained to your requirements," he remarked to Yassen and continued without waiting for an answer. "I'll leave him to you, then. I could use a few hours of practice myself."

Professional courtesy or an unwillingness to cross Cossack. Either way Alex was all right with it.

In the end they spent the full five hours on the range. Alex was exhausted by the end of it but he had needed the practice. Last time he'd had any chance to practice regularly with a gun had been … before Singapore. Before Nice. Two full months ago. Alexei wasn't in a position where regular trips to the shooting range was something he did. Yassen had run him through a number of familiar weapons and Alex had worked his way through whatever rustiness that had managed to sneak into his skills.

By the end of it Patel had packed away his own weapons and simply watched, expression as unreadable as Yassen's.

Alex finished his last round. Lowered the gun. Waited for Yassen's verdict.

"Acceptable."

High praise from Yassen. Alex still felt a little rusty but a lot less than he'd felt before practice. His aim had been excellent, but he knew Yassen looked at more than just that. Aim, speed, stance, motions, and any sign that Alex's attention wavered in the slightest.

Finally Patel took a few steps closer, his attention focused on Alex. Alex stared right back. Patel's attention flickered briefly to Yassen.

"Someone raised a weapon."

"Perhaps it wasn't what they intended, but SCORPIA was happy to complete the job that MI6 did not have the stomach for," Yassen agreed.

Patel nodded slowly. "What is his name?"

Alex didn't miss the fact that he had no place in that conversation. He wondered if that was how it would always be – or at least for the next few years. He was Yassen's student. Cossack already had a terrifying reputation. Alex shouldn't have been surprised that any questions went through Yassen. It was the respectful thing to do, he supposed. Wouldn't want to insult the man.

Yassen glanced at Alex in unspoken permission.

Alex raised his head a little defiantly. "Orion."

Did Patel know the mythology behind? Alex had no idea. The man just nodded slowly. "Orion," he repeated. "It was interesting to meet you."

What did you say to that? "... Thank you," Alex finally settled on, because it wasn't entirely a compliment but definitely wasn't an insult, either.

Patel smiled faintly, like he knew what Alex was thinking. The expression looked odd on him. Then again, the whole day had been more than a bit odd as far as Alex was concerned.

Alex got a ride back with Patel to keep up appearances. Adams kept him company for a little while that evening as he transferred the data from the implant to his own laptop and checked its status.

If they had set everything up right, there would be a lot of information in that one device. For now, Alex was too exhausted to care one way or another.

* * *

A/N 2: Regarding Yassen's height – _Russian Roulette_ puts Hunter at about three inches taller than Cossack, who is nineteen at the time (and unlikely to have grown taller at that age). _Scorpia Rising_ puts Alex at five foot ten at the age of fifteen, which means he'll almost certainly grow more. We're told that Alex takes a lot after his father. Based on that I put adult Alex (and John Rider) at six feet even. That puts Yassen at five foot nine, slightly below average for a Russian male (which fits nicely with his background, too). If grown-up Alex ends up with the same body type as his father, he'll have three inches and probably a decent amount of muscle on Yassen. Yeah, that surprised me.

Next: Alex has objectives to complete.


	20. Orion, part I

A/N: So I thought the wrap-up of the Miami mission would be 6-7k-ish. Yeah, let's try double that. So this chapter is split in two.

TheSilverHunt3r: There's absolutely no canon about how tall Alex ends up (or Yassen's height), so that's really just my own interpretation for this fic. I do like the idea of Alex being both taller and more muscular. It doesn't mean he can best Yassen, but it will force him to learn different fighting styles than Yassen and Nile as he gets older, since theirs won't fit him nearly as well as an adult.

* * *

Three days of analysis later, Yassen finally decided they had enough intel to make their move. Ramos' second and third in command were far less paranoid than their boss, and Yassen already had plans for the complete destruction of both locations. Yassen hadn't shared the plans, and Alex had taken the unspoken hint and kept from asking. Another test, maybe. Yassen had good reasons to keep Alex out of the loop in Singapore. He might have the same now. SCORPIA were firm believers in need-to-know, and in this case it was none of Orion's business.

The combined efforts of Alex's observations, Patel's information, and the implant had finally yielded enough intel to take the risk with Ramos as well. Enough to be reasonably sure they had taken all possibilities into account.

The simplest way to do it would be to wait until Alex had handled his third job for Ramos. Payment tended to happen two days later, which would let them know when to be ready to attack. Yassen didn't agree.

"They would also be more likely to suspect something would happen," he explained. "Ramos is a comfortable man. He would not summon you at an inconvenient time to him. Afternoon or evening, then. We will be ready to attack when he summons you for another job."

"That could be a lot of waiting," Alex pointed out. "Two weeks last time."

Yassen's response was a small shrug. "I have waited longer than that in far more uncomfortable surroundings. The life of an assassin is a life of patience."

Unspoken was the fact that the four teams they would use for the attack would just have to suck it up and learn about Yassen's particular brand of patience first-hand. At least they got paid well for it.

Marcus accepted that with pragmatic ease. "Better than the Sandbox."

Alex supposed he had a point.

There was also the issue of Ramos himself. They needed the man alive and in reasonably good condition, preferably as unharmed as possible. Since they couldn't exactly expect him to be cooperative, they needed him unconscious. A hard blow to the head rather went against the 'reasonably good condition' thing they were paid so well for.

"A fast-acting sedative?" Alex suggested. "The stuff you gave me before RTI -"

"A cocktail of several drugs, the use of which requires a doctor present if you want to guarantee your subject survives. The dosage was tailored to you, and you were put through a medical check-up shortly before for the same reason," Yassen said. "Whatever Dr Three's preferred use of his skills, he is a trained medical professional. It also took somewhat longer to work than you think. Several minutes, though you likely don't recall it."

All Alex remembered was dizziness and then nothing until he woke up in the cell. It was a little unnerving to know that there were minutes after the injection where he was sort of conscious that he didn't remember.

"Usually students are given the fast-acting sedative. In some cases, such as yours, it is desirable to have a fast initial effect but not have unconsciousness set in immediately. It is … educational to see a student's reactions in that state of vulnerability. You were surprisingly calm about it," Yassen continued. "That counted in your favour. Dr Steiner's interpretation was that you subconsciously understood I had given you the injection and you either took it as an order or accepted it as a test. With both possibilities, the lack of a struggle implied a subconscious obedience to me that SCORPIA approved of."

They had wanted him drugged out of his mind so Dr Steiner could analyse his reactions. So out of it that Alex didn't remember it and probably hadn't even been capable of any coherent thought. The thought made his skin crawl. The sheer amount of times he could have messed up and never even known were chilling. He changed the subject before the thought could settle too much. "MI6 used something fast-acting. Something in a dart."

"If they were sensible, they had a doctor close at hand, too. There are a number of things that can go wrong with methods like that. Perhaps one in a hundred. Perhaps more. Perhaps less. Would you risk it, knowing the punishment should the operation fail?"

Alex didn't need to answer that. Yassen could read the sudden tension in his body just fine.

No. No, he wouldn't. Knowing his luck, Ramos would be the one in a hundred or whatever that actually died from it.

Somehow Alex doubted MI6 had been that careful with him. They certainly wouldn't have been able to tailor the dosage as well as SCORPIA had. He honestly hadn't paid much attention to the medical check-up. It had been right around the two-month mark for check-ups that he had been warned about. It made sense, though. They would have known his height, weight, muscle mass, allergies, current injuries – anything that might have been able to influence the effects of the drugs. For a terrorist organisation, they had been incredibly cautious.

"MI6 had access to your medical records. They would have known of any immediate red flags. We won't have the same for our primary objective one, but a slower-working drug would be an option. Keep him controlled until it takes effect and keep the antidote close at hand. You will be responsible for that. A life-threatening reaction is unlikely but we can't afford to discount it."

Definitely not when SCORPIA's orders were to capture the man alive and well enough to be interrogated. They would not be happy if Ramos died after this much work had gone into his capture. They would be even less happy if Ramos had insurance set up in case of his death that would make the FBI-related evidence public.

Like all of Malagosto's graduates, Alex had a basic grounding in medical training from Dr Three. Now he had Sagitta to draw on as well, which he supposed was the point of having his own team for the operation. Reliable support he could work with. Mace and Aranda both had medical training. He would make sure to pick their brains on any issues that might show up.

The sedative itself would be easy to get. With SCORPIA's contacts, it would take less than a day to arrive. There were a lot of hospitals and doctors within easy reach. Someone, somewhere had the right sort of flexible morals to hand that sort of drug over without question for the right pay.

Alex nodded slowly. Get in, take out Ramos' guards, sedate the man, keep him controlled until it kicked in, and try not to have him croak until after the client had paid the full amount. And then the minor issue of the rest of security, the staff, and the manor itself …

Right. Easy. They were eight people. They would only be outnumbered, oh, about four to one. On a good day. And that wasn't counting the fact that they would go in partially blind. They still didn't have nearly enough intel for Alex's comfort.

"We don't know how well-trained the rest of the staff is," Alex said carefully. He wasn't quite sure how to broach the subject. "And there's a lot of them."

"Twenty, perhaps, depending on the time of day you get summoned. There could easily be additional security as well." Yassen sounded utterly unconcerned about that minor detail. "If Sagitta is worth their salary, they can handle that. Circumstances are a little unusual in that we need primary target one alive and well. You will take Danube with you as insurance and to assist in demolition. I will take Azov and Baikal for the two secondary locations."

Just like that, Alex was no longer in command of seven people but the eight people of team Danube as well. He appreciated the backup and additional weapons but that didn't make it any less intimidating. He didn't even know the team beyond their file and that initial meeting. Hill, their CO, was former Delta Force, and his team specialised in being the 'killer' part of some of SCORPIA's hunter-killer missions. Alex supposed that did make them quite suitable for the job of clearing out Ramos' home. They had also been the team that Sagitta had shared a house with for the operation. They knew each other somewhat, then.

There wasn't really much Alex could say to that. Yassen had obviously made up his mind. Alex supposed all he could do now was agree.

* * *

Alex met up with Yassen again two days later. The sedative had arrived by then, and Aranda gave him a lesson in the medical devices he would need to be familiar with. He got a quick lesson in the drug as well, just in case he would need to administer it himself.

There was little else left to plan. Alex's job was clear. Get close to Ramos, signal the two teams, wait for the attack, and contain their primary objective one – Ramos – until one of the medics could arrive to drug him. Unsaid but understood perfectly clear by Alex was that he would need to take out any guards and be ready to hold down his position until reinforcements arrived.

Yassen's final order at the end of the briefing was just as clear. "We need primary objective one alive and reasonably unharmed. You will not let him out of your sight."

He didn't quite spell out that Alex's future well-being depended on Ramos' survival but he didn't need to. Alex would have to trust Sagitta and Danube to do their job. Stuck at Ramos' side, he could do nothing else. If they screwed up, he was dead. If not by Ramos' men, then by SCORPIA's.

Suddenly that careful choice of a team had a lot more weight to it.

It took eight days after Yassen had given the go-ahead for the attack before Alex was summoned for another job.

Adams had given him a small, flat transmitter and instructions to stick it behind one of his upper back molars with a whitish paste that looked like used chewing gum and tasted like eraser.

"Work it loose and bite down on it when you're in Ramos' office. It'll send a signal to us. It's the same kind as your two current implants, so it should get through security just fine, especially since it's not active then."

Alex thought of the implant between his shoulder blades and the larger one just above his hip, and remembered how expensive those had apparently been. "Do I want to know how much that one costs?"

Adams grimaced. "Probably not. Let's just call it the shittiest and most expensive piece of chewing gum you'll ever taste and leave it at that."

Worth it, though. They couldn't gamble on an estimated time for the attack. Too soon and Alex would still be surrounded by security. Too late and he would be out of the office again.

Alex got fifteen minutes of warning before a driver picked him up. Just enough time to alert Yassen and send Sagitta to Ramos' manor. Danube was already there as the noon shift of the day.

Alex felt like someone else controlled his body as he let security do their checks. Racing heart, full of adrenaline, but weirdly detached from everything. The cut from the implant was mostly healed. Enough that the plasters were gone and only the thick, red ridge of badly healed scar tissue along the worst parts of the cut was left. No one even looked twice. Alex wondered how many other kids they had seen pass through Ramos' house on business for a month or two, never to be seen again.

Bald picked him up from security and led him down the hallway like always. Alex followed silently. Neither of them spoke as they entered the familiar office and Alex was firmly guided to sit down.

The faint sound of footsteps caught Alex's attention.

They wouldn't have much time to act. Ramos never kept Alex for long. The moment the man entered the office, Alex ran his tongue along the edge of the transmitter and pried it loose from his tooth. Manoeuvred it into place and bit down hard while he tried not to draw attention.

The thing felt the same as before, if a little more uneven from the imprint of his teeth. He would just have to hope that he had done it right and that Adams' faith in his mentor's technical abilities was well-founded.

Ramos settled down behind the desk and watched his wary guest.

"I have heard no complaints about you from Patel," the man eventually remarked when the silence grew too uncomfortable and Alexei fidgeted a little in the large chair. "I trust your lessons went well."

There was a very plain _or else_ tagged on to that question. A professional contract killer was infinitely more valuable than any child, even a SCORPIA trained one. Ramos had taken a chance when he had allowed Alexei to continue his lessons. He clearly expected it to have paid off. "Yes, sir." Alexei hesitated. "He is – different."

Rift had been a raging psychopath that took a delight in keeping his pet projects guessing and punished them brutally when they guessed wrong. Compared to that, Patel's calm indifference would be … odd.

"Continue to do a good enough job, and I'll arrange for him to finish your training."

True, possibly. It could have been a very good lie, Alex wasn't entirely sure, but he was inclined to go with his first instinct. Patel had mentioned the same. That Ramos wanted to keep him. For longer than his usual pet killers, at least. Make use of Alexei's prior training.

Alexei watched him sharply, that promise enough to get him to forget his unease. Rift had picked him for a reason and Alexei was an attentive student. The promise of lessons would make him behave. "Yes, sir."

A large envelope appeared from a drawer and Ramos removed a small stack of photos and papers from it. "Your new job," he said and placed it on the desk between them.

Alex started to reached out for them but never finished the motion.

The first muted sound of guns came a second before Bald raised a hand to his ear and focused his attention on the sole outsider in the room – Alex.

Ramos' eyes narrowed and Tattoo moved a step closer to the chair.

Alex didn't wait for the guns to come out. He was on his feet in an instant, at the same second Bald pulled his gun and fired. If Alex had been sitting, the bullet would have gone through his head. Instead it hit his chest dead centre.

Metal hit ballistic fabric but didn't go through it. Yassen's added protection had done its job. Alex felt like someone had slammed him in the chest with a sledgehammer and knocked the air out of him. He stumbled from the sheer force of it and the sudden pain but reacted instinctively against the new threat. Ruthless instruction from Professor Yermalov took over. Alex struck and felt Bald's throat collapse with sickening ease under his hand.

The man stumbled. Choked and reached for his throat before he simply collapsed on the floor. Alex wrenched the gun from him and fired point-blank at Tattoo, before he turned the weapon on Ramos and stopped the instant before he pulled the trigger.

The whole thing had taken less than ten seconds.

Adrenaline pumped through his body and took with it the worst of the pain, but even then his chest hurt with every breath. No blood that Alex could feel, and it didn't feel like internal injuries, either, but definitely bruised ribs. Probably some cracked ones, too. Part of the cut on his back had been torn open again as well, he could tell that much.

He recognised dimly through the throbbing pain that next month or so while his ribs healed would suck.

Alex stayed perfectly still, gun aimed unerringly at Ramos. Breathed slow and steady through the pain as the two watched each other. Ramos had reached for a gun. Now he had stopped midway through the motion, his attention solely on Alex.

"My employers want you alive," Alex said, using his proper accent for the first time, "but I'll be happy to take the pay-cut and hand them a dead body instead if you try anything. I owe you a couple of punches with interest."

A bit of a lie since Alex doubted he would live long past Ramos' death himself, but his expression must have been convincing enough. Ramos nodded and held up his hands slightly in the universal gesture of surrender. Alex carefully moved around the desk and Ramos followed along, his eyes never leaving the gun. Alex only stopped when their positions had switched completely and he was staring at the door while Ramos had his back to it. He counted on the window behind him being safe, at least. Ramos was concerned enough to have taken snipers into account.

"SCORPIA, I assume." Ramos sounded certain. Certain enough to continue without waiting for an answer. "Alex Rider, then. I had my suspicions, but everyone seemed certain you were in Johannesburg. Who was I to turn down a useful tool like you? A very nice doppelgänger they got you. Decent enough to send MI6 on a wild chase."

"They take rogue agents personally," Alex agreed. "It worked well enough for what we needed."

There was continuous gunfire somewhere in the building now, barely muted by walls and distance. Ramos glanced briefly at the closed door. Alex was intensely grateful he was not the one with his back to it now.

"Yours or mine, you think?" the man asked conversationally. Alex recognised the strategy for what it was – an attempt to distract him enough to create an opening – but he let the man talk. He doubted anything useful would slip, but you never knew. "You are outnumbered, I'm afraid. What my men don't kill, the Miami police will round up for me. And you, Rider … you, I will sell to the highest bidder. There are a number of parties interested in you. If you're fortunate, SCORPIA will kill you first. They don't take kindly to failure, I've been told. MI6 seems eager to have you back, though with the intel you carry, a number of terrorist organisations would pay good money for the chance to interrogate you."

"I've been threatened with live dissection," Alex replied. "You're going to have to do a little better than that. Points for effort, though."

More gunfire, closer this time. Both of them tensed, expecting the door to fly open at any moment. Alex was surprised that more guards hadn't arrived to check on Ramos, but then, they were dealing with a full-scale assault. They would expect Bald and Tattoo to have it under control.

Ramos glanced at Alex with sharp eyes. Both knew what would happen if Alex's people arrived first. If Ramos' did, however …

"I was trained by Yassen Gregorovich," Alex pointed out, perfectly calm and even. "Your guards will probably shoot me, yes. They won't be able to do it fast enough to save you. If my team arrives first, you will be alive to take your chances with our client. If they don't … " he shrugged slightly and regretted it at the sharp pain it caused.

Ramos got the point just fine. His expression cooled a degree.

"Of course. I wouldn't expect anything less from Gregorovich's pet."

Since threats didn't work, it was on to trying to provoke him into doing something stupid. Alex still had nightmares about RTI, but at least Dr Three had trained them in the psychological parts of it as well and Alex easily ignored Ramos.

His chest throbbed. Every breath hurt. It was still dulled by adrenaline, but part of the effect was clearly wearing off.

Footsteps and gunfire in the hallway, almost right outside, then a shout from a familiar voice above it all.

" _Orion?_ " Marcus. Alex felt some of the tension in his body drain away and raw relief take over.

"Clear!" he shouted back. The man was smart enough not to barge in unannounced.

Marcus entered the room seconds later, weapon ready and Aranda close behind. They moved fast. Alex kept his gun aimed at Ramos while Marcus guarded the door from the inside. Alex caught a glimpse of Ivey standing guard in the hallway. Aranda prepared the sedative with practised ease.

Ramos didn't move. "Your client?" he asked.

"Classified," Alex said calmly. "Don't know, don't care. Make life difficult for my medic, and I'll make life difficult for you. Clear?"

Ramos' expression twisted into a sneer. "Clear."

Aranda grabbed his arm and found a vein for the needle. They could have injected it anywhere, but with their pincushion under control, a vein was better. It would work faster. It couldn't have been pleasant but Ramos didn't flinch. A few seconds later it was over. Aranda packed the needle away. Ramos pressed a hand against the bleeding injection site, and Aranda proceeded to attach a number of small medical devices to the man. No one spoke. The only sounds were the occasional, muted gunshots still going on around them and the soft beep as each of the devices turned on.

Alex recognised a number of them from RTI. Aranda had just hooked up the last one when Ramos swayed and almost stumbled before he caught himself.

Aranda checked the time. "Right on schedule."

Ramos opened his mouth to say something. Then he stilled and just … crumbled to the floor, only barely slowed down by Aranda's firm grip on him.

The medic ran through his vitals. "Looks good," he finally decided. "Out cold. Strong pulse, decent oxygen levels, no immediate sign of a bad reaction. He's all yours, sir."

Job done, Aranda pulled out a small headset and several guns for Alex. He felt a lot less exposed with that back in place. He replaced Bald's gun with one of his own and winced as his ribs made themselves known again, but he ignored it for now.

"Thank you. Good work." Alex touched his headset. "Sagitta, Danube, this is Orion. Primary objective one is secure."

Aranda frowned but waited until Alex had stopped talking. "Your status, sir?"

"Gunshot to the chest. The ballistic fabric took the bullet but I've definitely bruised my ribs. No internal injuries that I can tell, it just really hurts."

A quick check of his chest revealed a nasty bruise that was bound to get a lot worse but nothing that made Aranda overly worried. "You'll live, sir. Breathe normally and try not to twist around too much."

Alex hadn't expected anything else but it was nice to get it confirmed. Aranda handed a full syringe to Alex, the antidote to the sedative. If Ramos' condition took a turn for the worse, he would need to use it before they accidentally killed the man. Alex glanced at Marcus. The man had bent down to check that Bald was actually dead, but he straightened when Alex's attention turned to him.

"Status?"

Marcus shrugged. "More security than expected but nothing we can't handle."

The man didn't sound worried. One weight off of Alex's shoulders. "I've got Ramos, go handle the rest of the place."

Marcus nodded once. "Copy, sir." A small gesture at Aranda and Ivey and Alex was alone again.

Alex kept an eye on the door, his gun never leaving it. The occasional soft sound from the medical devices kept a running update on Ramos. He wasn't a trained medic but he knew enough to get by. Yassen had left the responsibility with Alex. Sagitta and Danube could handle the house; Alex was not to let Ramos out of sight, and Alex planned to follow those orders to the letter.

Movement outside the door broke the silence. Adams appeared, Jarek close on his heels. He carried two huge bags with him and dumped them in the middle of the desk without a second look at Ramos' unconscious shape. Both of them had what looked like large bloodstains soaking into their combat uniforms, but none of it seemed to be their own. Alex shouldn't even have been surprised. They'd had to fight their way through the building.

Adams removed a number of instruments and sensors and set them up with practised motions. A number of scanners of different sorts, large imaging devices that Alex was only vaguely familiar with, and a third bag that Jarek carried that was full of explosives.

All communication in the house had been shut down. For the moment the only communication went through SCORPIA-lines. They would have maybe half an hour undisturbed, though that could go either way. Beyond the room, the remaining members of Sagitta along with Danube were securing the rest of the building. Some miles away, Yassen might already have taken care of the homes of Ramos' second and third in command with Azov and Baikal.

Plugged in, the instruments fired up with a low hum.

"We've got what looks like another basement down and to the left. About the same size as the one we've got mapped, but as a single room and with no connection between the two."

Alex tried to fit the direction to his mental map of the place. "Entrance?"

"About fifty yards away, one floor down." Adams brought out the blueprints and started to sketch, glancing between paper and screen. "The room four doors down to the left, I think. Might be one room further away, it's hard to tell."

It was silent in the house around them now, but they had orders to keep it as quiet as possible and not draw any unwanted attention, even now that security had been taken out. Suppressors and stealth were the orders of the day.

Alex touched his headset. "Marcus, this is Orion, what's the status?"

" _Security is down. Staff is handled. We're flushing out any stragglers now. Danube is going through the rooms for anything useful and setting up the explosives. Find something, sir?"_

"We have an entrance to a secondary basement four or five doors up and to the left of Ramos' office, one floor down. Single room, pretty big."

" _Got it, sir."_

Alex forced himself to ignore the implications of Marcus' words. Security had to be dealt with, they were too dangerous to leave alive, but there was no reason to kill the staff. Nothing but the fact that SCORPIA needed Ramos to seem dead, and the best way was the complete destruction of his home. They couldn't risk anyone who might have seen Ramos' unconscious body carried out. Yassen's orders had been clear – leave no survivors.

The investigators might not be able to say who was behind it, but the cold-blooded execution of everyone in the house would be enough to heavily imply a competitor of some sort. Even if the attackers somehow got identified as SCORPIA, they could easily have been hired by a competitor for the job. It wouldn't have been the first time.

Adams kept working and made notes and additions to the blueprints all the while. "Looks like that's about everything, sir. The number of rooms in the first basement matches what we've got. Nothing else that looks suspicious."

If the basement was hidden well enough, that was probably all Ramos would have needed, too. You would need specialist equipment to find it.

Alex took a slow breath. Ignored the pain that came with it. No more hidden rooms meant less time before they could be out of there, too. "All right. Pack it up and start on the explosives."

Adams nodded. "Sir."

The house under control, Alex started on his own task. He kept on eye on Ramos and went through the office with Jarek's help even as Adams began to set up the explosives. Any information, anything of interest. Leave nothing behind. Ramos' office would take the brunt of the explosion and remove any evidence that might remain. Alex's ribs weren't too happy with the movement but they would just have to deal for now.

There was a low rumble somewhere below them. Alex suspected it might have been the door to the second basement.

Finally his headset came to life again. _"Jackpot, sir. I'd say at least fifty pounds of drugs, looks like mostly cocaine, and a lot of cash. There's a large safe as well, we're working on it."_

 _Fifty pounds of -_

Alex wasn't exactly up to date on drug prices but even he knew enough to put the value in the millions. Depending on the quality of the drugs and the amount of cash, that room alone could be worth in the low eight digits.

He felt vaguely dizzy for a moment. Never mind the evidence; SCORPIA was going to _kill_ them if they left even a single pack of it behind.

"Pack it up, all of it, and tell me if you need more people to carry it. Ramos is out of it, but we can probably get him conscious if you need him for the safe."

Getting him to cooperate might be harder, but Alex didn't doubt that whatever was in that safe, it had to be valuable and very likely included the evidence they were there to get.

" _We've got it covered, sir. It's a good one, but we brought tools for it."_

At least Alex didn't have to worry that some of it might vanish on the way. SCORPIA ran a brutally tight ship, and Cossack was in charge of the operation. Even a hint that something was off, and people would die.

"Estimate?"

" _Fifteen minutes, hopefully less."_

Better than it could have been. "Keep me updated."

Marcus had barely signed off before the headset flared to life again. _"Orion, status?"_

Yassen. Alex glanced at Ramos and the instruments that still showed nothing out of the ordinary. "Primary objective one secure, sir. We've raided his office and found a second basement with a safe. Sagitta's working on it now, estimate is fifteen minutes. House secured, Danube's handling the explosives."

SCORPIA had taught him to be brief and efficient and he relied on those lessons now, rattling off the information Yassen would want. It was easy in a way he wasn't sure he was comfortable with. _Trained to your requirements,_ Patel had told Yassen. _Ross was quite impressed with your obedience_ , Kurst had remarked.

Maybe Yassen hadn't planned it like that, but Alex couldn't help the feeling that at the end of it, Yassen hadn't just trained a temporary partner or possible successor but a second in command. Alex had already learned to anticipate Yassen's requests and read his moods in a way he doubted anyone else had managed. Alex had spent five months in isolation with Yassen. Half the time the man didn't even need to speak. By the end of those five months, Alex had learned to read him through body language alone.

Alex Rider had been trained as a spy. Spies adapted. That was how they survived. Deliberately or not, Yassen had put Alex in a situation where his only choice was to adapt, and so he had done just that.

" _Well done. Contact me when the primary objectives are en route."_

"Yes, sir."

Alex returned to his hunt for information with Jarek. Every drawer, every shelf, anything that might hide something. It was slow, meticulous work, but if there was anything hidden anywhere outside of that safe, it was likely to be there. Danube would pick up what they found and let them know if any rooms looked especially interesting, but it was limited how much time they had.

Adams continued his own job, moving to the room next door after Ramos' office had been rigged to blow. At least the rest would go faster.

It was ten long minutes later when Marcus' voice cut through the silence again. _"Got it open, sir. Primary objective two is secure."_

They had the evidence, then. Alex let out a slow breath he hadn't even known he had held in as Marcus spoke. Some of the tension left him, too. "Good work. Grab everything and rig the place to blow. We're going to cut it close as it is. Send Ivey up, we need to drag Ramos out of here."

Alex waited only until Marcus' acknowledgement before he touched his headset. "Sagitta, Danube, what's your status?"

" _Ground floor and second floor south sector cleared and rigged."_ Danube. Alex recognised Hill's voice.

" _Second floor, north sector cleared and rigged."_ Adams.

" _Basement one, cleared and rigged. Basement two cleared, ninety seconds to rig it."_ And Marcus.

"Finish it up, then get out of here. Time to leave."

Ivey appeared in the doorway. Alex slipped a hood over Ramos' face and cuffed his hands behind his back, then nodded to Jarek and Ivey to carry the sedated man outside. He followed along, everything useful from the office in his own bag. Three laptops, a lot of papers, Ramos' phones – half a dozen at Alex's count – and several handfuls of USB drives.

They passed by several spots in the hallway where the rug had turned a suspicious brownish red and the walls had been destroyed by stray bullets. Alex very determinedly didn't look too closely at it.

Marcus met them by the entrance, a large bag slung over his shoulder. "A lot of evidence, sir."

Two objectives accomplished, then. Ramos and his evidence so far.

"Good job. What's our status?"

"Couple of injuries on our team, and Danube lost a man. They ran into a bit more resistance with security than they'd expected. They'll handle it. They know not to leave evidence behind." Marcus didn't sound overly concerned. Not his team, not his problem, Alex suspected. It was a cold-blooded approach but Marcus was also SCORPIA's. His loyalty was to SCORPIA and his own team first. Anything else was a distant second.

The vans that waited outside were armoured but didn't look the part. Two had the name of an air conditioning company, two looked like pool service, and the last two were from a gardening company. None of them looked the slightest out of place in a wealthy neighbourhood.

The van they dropped Ramos in barely had enough room for Alex, Jarek, and Ivey, as well as their unconscious cargo. Every last spare inch around them had been crammed full of solid, square packages. The ones Alex used as an armrest were full of tightly-packed white powder wrapped in thick layers of plastic. He didn't want to think about how many dollars worth of cocaine he was surrounded by. The four harmless-looking briefcases probably contained the cash. You could cram a lot of hundred-dollar bills into that amount of space. Alex's chest was throbbing, protesting its treatment in its own miserable way, and the fading adrenaline along with the uncomfortable seats really didn't help.

Adams slipped into the front passenger seat with his own bags. Mace had changed to a work uniform that matched the company logo on the van, and Adams was taking off his own body armour even as Mace drove off.

Alex watched out of the dark windows as they left the manor behind. He counted the vans as well and made sure he saw the last one leave before he contacted his two team leaders.

"Sagitta and Danube, status?" Marcus and Hill would have kept an eye on their people. It was their responsibility everyone got out.

" _Sagitta clear. Primary objective one and two secure._ "

" _Danube clear,"_ Hill followed a second later.

Only one thing left to do, then. "Cossack, this is Orion. The house is cleared. Primary objectives one and two are en route. Permission to blow it sky-high, sir?"

" _Go."_

Alex glanced over at Adams. "Blow it."

Adams smiled grimly and flicked a switch. "Detonating in three, two, one -"

Alex didn't feel the tremor from the explosion through the vibrations of the van, but he heard the sound and saw the flash of light even through the dark windows. It was still for an endless second. Then the plume of smoke rose behind them, high above the manor grounds. Fire would follow fast behind and consume whatever had survived the explosion. There would be little evidence left.

If anyone had survived somewhere in the house, they would have been killed. There would have been no time to escape.

How many people had been killed in that attack? Alex doubted he would ever know for sure, and he wasn't sure if that made it any better or worse. He hadn't pulled the trigger, and Yassen had given the order to leave no survivors, but that didn't mean he was blameless. He had let it happen. He hadn't even tried to argue. Sagitta and Danube had handled most of it on their own, but Alex had been the person ultimately in charge.

Sirens would appear soon. Emergency services of all kinds. The explosion had definitely drawn the attention of everyone in a large area. By then, they would hopefully be far enough away to be clear of it. The vans had split up, the rendezvous point already arranged.

Alex had done his job. The rest wasn't his problem. If he told himself that often enough, maybe eventually he would even believe it.

* * *

Next: Familiar faces.


	21. Orion, part II

A/N: I don't think I've said this recently, but thank you very much for reading and for your reviews. I appreciate each and every one of them :)

* * *

Alex left American territory three hours later on a private jet with primary objectives one and two, his two teams, and most of the leftover supplies. The drugs and cash had been left in Miami. Yassen would stay for another several days with his teams to handle clean-up and hand over the rest of operation to someone else. Maybe they had someone like Crux nearby to take over Ramos' business, Alex had no idea. He had spoken briefly with Yassen before they took off but there hadn't been time to see him in person, much less ask about anything that wasn't directly related to Alex's part of things. It was probably one of those things Yassen wouldn't answer, anyway.

Someone had found him an ice pack and some painkillers, and Alex felt better for it already. Aranda had taken a closer look and confirmed that it was nothing more than bruised ribs. Nothing that looked like fractures. Time would take care of it. The medic had also stitched up Alex's cut and bandaged it properly. They still needed to remove the implant, but that would have to wait until they had access to an actual clinic to make sure it was done right.

None of the injuries on the teams were serious. Heavy body armour and experience had kept them mostly safe. Two bullet wounds, both of which had already been handled, and a possible concussion. They'd only had the one fatality on the two teams, though Alex had no idea what the status was on Azov and Baikal. Another thing Yassen hadn't mentioned.

Alex let Ramos' sedative run out over the Atlantic, when any chance of escape was gone. He was easier to deal with conscious than with the worry that something would go wrong if they kept him under for the entire flight.

He did duct tape the man's mouth shut and handcuff him to the seat. A little hunger and thirst wouldn't hurt him, and they had three trained medics on board if anything happened.

Between Alex and two trained SCORPIA teams, they had no issues at all with their prisoner. They took turns keeping watch while the others rested, and when they landed in Abu Dhabi in the early evening some fourteen hours later, Alex had actually managed to catch a little sleep. Short and restless, but sleep.

He had also managed to find a uniform that fit. Height wasn't an issue, since he was already a little taller than several of the men on the teams, but his build was still slim for an adult. The clothes hung a little loose in places but they were at least clean and fit well enough. He kept the t-shirt from Yassen on underneath, just to feel a little more comfortable. An actual bulletproof vest would have been too much.

The person that greeted Alex in the mirror was a total stranger. His hair was dyed, his face looked hard and his eyes tired, and the uniform was all black and had a small, grey, stylised scorpion on the pocket right above his heart. Alex was sure SCORPIA had designed the uniforms for that. The symbolism was a little uncomfortable to him. There were enough similarities with his uniform from Brecon Beacons to be vaguely unnerving and enough differences to remind him that he belonged to a very different sort of organisation now.

Sunglasses and a shemagh along with some discreetly aimed weapons kept Ramos from drawing unnecessary attention. Someone had stripped him and put him in a SCORPIA uniform as well. From a distance, he looked like anyone else on the teams.

Alex had wondered about their destination, but Yassen had arranged the flight and there hadn't exactly been time to ask questions. He got his answer when he left the plane and found Dr Three waiting in front of a massive, white Mercedes G-Class with one of his assistants and two guards.

Yassen had mentioned that the mission hadn't been supervised by one of the board. That left exactly one reason why the man would be there. Alex felt a twinge of sympathy for Ramos.

He stood a little straighter as he approached the small group. "Sir."

Dr Three smiled. He looked genuinely pleased to see Alex. "Orion." He glanced past the group to look at Ramos instead before he looked back to Alex. "And primary objective one. Excellent. Your teams?"

"Commanders Marcus and Hill, sir. Teams Sagitta and Danube for the operation."

Dr Three nodded slowly. His attention lingered on the two men. Alex noticed they both stood a little straighter as well. "Very well done indeed. We will need to remember them for later operations."

A slight gesture from Dr Three saw Ramos moved to the car, one guard on each side. The man glanced at Alex. "And Cossack's orders for you?"

Alex wanted to lie. He wanted to wash his hands of the whole assignment, go to a hotel somewhere, curl up in bed, and just ignore the world. He knew where that question was going. They needed to know Ramos didn't have contingency plans. The original plans called for Yassen to handle the interrogation but those plans had obviously been changed. Alex didn't want to be involved, didn't want to be anywhere near it, but Yassen had left him with no choice. Lie or deal with the interrogation. Yassen had promised he wouldn't make Alex sit through something like that again. That promise had lasted a grand total of two months.

Alex closed his eyes briefly. Opened them again and steeled himself. "I'm not to let Ramos out of sight, sir."

Dr Three nodded. He looked like he had expected it. "You will need a team for the exchange."

"Sagitta, sir." That choice was easy, at least.

Dr Three looked like he had expected that as well. He handed Hill an envelope. "Your new orders."

Hill nodded slightly. "Sir."

Another envelope went to Marcus. "Your team has been given four days of downtime. The exchange is arranged for a week from now. Your instructions."

"Sir." Marcus' slight nod echoed Hill's.

A small gesture dismissed both teams. Alex was alone with Dr Three. In the car, Ramos was slumped over. Drugged again, probably. Alex felt tired resignation settle in his body, weary to his bones. His chest throbbed dully. The cut on his back still stung. He had been ready to refuse, and if it had been Yassen, he would have. Against memories of RTI and Dr Three's sincere delight in breaking people …

Dr Three was famous for his abilities. Alex had passed RTI but that didn't change the fact that the man had him firmly brought to heel and they both knew it.

 _Property of SCORPIA._

"Your orders, sir?" he asked quietly.

Dr Three's expression seemed to soften just a little. He handed Alex an envelope as well. "So obedient. Cossack trained you well. You have been given three days of downtime yourself. Primary objective one is my responsibility now. You are very young. It takes age and experience, I think, to appreciate the art of breaking a man. Hunter was skilled at it but he never enjoyed the task, either. A room has been booked for you. Dismissed, Orion."

Alex didn't move for a second. He wondered if he should ask, but he was too tired all of a sudden to play those games. For all of Dr Three's disturbing hobbies, he had always been … kind, of sorts, for a board member. "A test, sir?"

"Life itself is a test," Dr Three said philosophically. "SCORPIA knows of your dislike of torture. It speaks well of you that half a world away, injured and obviously reluctant, you still obey Cossack's command. He requested we keep you out of this."

Alex wasn't sure what to say to that. In the end he just nodded. Asking too much might just make the doctor change his mind.

"Thank you, sir."

Dr Three nodded. "Dismissed."

This time Alex obeyed without hesitation.

* * *

Alex spent two days more or less constantly asleep. Someone had booked him a suite in a five-star resort, but Alex never left the room. He left the 'do not disturb' sign up and had room service when he was awake and hungry for long enough to bother. He hadn't bothered with air conditioning but left the balcony door open instead. The unfamiliar smells helped a little.

His chest hurt, he was exhausted, and he kept dreaming of blood and the feel of Bald's throat crushed under his hand.

Yassen Gregorovich let himself into the suite on the morning of the third day. He had a bag over his shoulder and looked perfectly anonymous. Casual enough clothes to fit the place and no visible weapons.

Alex looked up from his bowl of obscenely colourful cereal where he was curled up on the couch. He knew what Yassen saw. He hadn't showered since Miami and he still wore the black t-shirt from his uniform along with a pair of boxers. He hadn't even bothered with trousers. The TV was on, but it was a cartoon in Arabic and not the news he should probably have been watching instead. He didn't even try to make up an excuse. He had downtime and he would use it however he damn well pleased. He was tired, mentally and physically, his chest hurt, and he didn't want to be Orion. Not now. He was Alex Rider, he was fifteen, and he didn't want to be a killer.

Alex Rider was the very model of a modern SCORPIA operative, and anyone who had an issue with that could take it up with someone who actually cared.

Yassen arched an eyebrow. Alex took another spoonful of cereal and chewed. Loudly.

Was that a flicker of amusement? Alex wasn't sure. Point made, he put the bowl aside a little reluctantly.

"My chest feels like someone hit me with a mallet." He paused. "Thank you for the t-shirt, by the way."

"It did its job." That was 'I'm glad you survived' in Yassen-language. Alex was an accomplished translator these days.

Yassen's eyes lingered on the neatly folded uniform on the table, Alex's only concession to the fact that he was technically considered an adult. Then his attention drifted to the large bowl of melting ice cream that was supposed to be the other half of Alex's breakfast.

"I got three days of downtime," Alex felt compelled to point out, part defence and part defiance.

"So you did," Yassen agreed. A heartbeat passed. He had to have noticed the fact that Alex wasn't armed, but he seemed willing to let it pass this one time. "You did very well, Alex."

Alex swallowed. He had dreamt of bloodstains, and Ramos' dead guards, and security spotting his transmitter. They had not been nice dreams. "Thank you." He hesitated and wondered if he should ask. "Your two objectives -"

A flicker of annoyance deep in Yassen's eyes, though Alex knew it wasn't aimed at him. "It has been handled. Baikal did not perform to the expected standards."

Alex took it to mean that people had probably died for that. He deliberately didn't ask and Yassen didn't explain any further but merely placed his bag on the couch next to Alex.

"Clean clothes. We leave for Malagosto. Primary objective one will remain in Dr Three's care until the exchange, but you have an implant that should be removed. A general medical check-up would be sensible as well."

 _Primary objective one._ Ramos didn't even have a name anymore. He was just a thing they had been paid to deliver, much like the evidence.

Alex would be glad to get rid of the implant, though. Maybe even do something about the scarring. Without stitches, the thing had started to heal pretty bad, and the stitches he now sported hadn't been able to do much to help. He knew he should have gone to see one of SCORPIA's medical contacts sooner, but Aranda had taken a look at things already. That was good enough for him.

"Contingency plans?" Alex asked. They had been worried about that.

"They have been handled. Dr Three plans to make sure no other unfortunate surprises might appear later."

Use the full week to properly break Ramos, then. Get all the information they could out of him and make use of it before the FBI did. There were lots of ways to do that and still leave him in decent physical condition. Alex should know, he had sat through those lessons himself.

Alex picked up the clothes and vanished into the bathroom. He appeared twenty minutes later showered and dressed in normal clothes again. He appreciated Yassen's choice of casual clothes as he strapped on the two guns and combat knives Yassen had also supplied. He didn't even try to argue. A phone, small and anonymous, went into his pocket. The uniform had vanished into the bag at some point while he got changed. Any evidence of room service was gone, probably while Alex was in the shower since he hadn't heard the door. The hotel suite looked perfectly pristine again.

Yassen had a car waiting for them, a familiar white Mercedes. The driver took off without any need for instructions. Alex idly realised that his physical possessions had once again been reduced to the clothes and weapons he wore. Yassen must have been aware of the same, because they stopped at a mall for just long enough for Alex to pick up a bag worth of clothes before they left Abu Dhabi.

The drive to Malagosto passed in silence. Alex was surprised to discover he had actually missed the place when they cleared security and finally came to a stop in front of the main building. It felt … weird. Sentimental and nostalgic and like it was a world and a lifetime away. Those two and a half months felt like forever ago. Before he had become a murderer.

Staring at Malagosto's grounds, Alex Rider was genuinely happy to be back. The closest thing to a home he'd had since July. Malagosto and Yassen's cabin in Russia.

"A number of your classmates have graduated," Yassen commented.

Alex nodded. He had expected as much. He didn't ask how they had done. He wasn't sure he wanted to, not when he knew just how many of those students that didn't even survive a year.

"D'Arc?" Alex asked.

"Away for the day." Yassen's response was perfectly neutral, but Alex got the suspicion that the man didn't exactly mind not having to go through the social niceties with the overly-chatty principal.

They found Dr Javadi in her clinic and she didn't let them leave again for three full hours. It took a good while to remove the transmitter and stitch up the cut – properly this time – and Alex had to sit through a thorough check of his ribs as well before she finally completed the whole thing with a general check-up.

Other than the pain in his chest and the cut on his lower back, Alex felt fine. Dr Javadi's results agreed with that assessment, not that he was that surprised.

Alex thought it was a little unfair Yassen didn't get put through the same. He was practically a geriatric in assassin-terms, not that Alex was about to say that out loud.

She sent them off again with instructions to call if Alex's condition got worse and a list of the exercises he could still do until everything healed up right. She kept the transmitter. With how much that thing cost, Alex assumed it would be returned to their surveillance section. Hopefully someone would clean and disinfect it first.

Alex really, really missed Smithers' gadgets.

"The students have class with Dr Three for another hour," Yassen commented. "He was quite pleased to have a live subject to demonstrate the less damaging methods on for a few days. The shooting ranges should be available."

Alex suppressed a shudder at the thought of live subjects and the image of himself in that position and focused on the second half of the comment. "Shooting sounds good."

He hadn't been able to practice properly beyond those hours with Patel and Yassen knew it. Target practice sounded good. Alex had found he genuinely enjoyed shooting when he wasn't targeting people or kid-shaped cut-outs. Even the adult-shaped cut-outs were something he had become used to.

Gordon Ross greeted them cheerfully and let them grab whatever they wanted. On neighbouring lanes, with Alex restless after three days in a hotel room – his own choice, but still – and Yassen still a little annoyed with Baikal, it shouldn't have been a surprise that shooting practice quickly turned into a competition.

It had happened often enough in the safe-house in Russia when Alex's aim had become good enough. Yassen still trounced him soundly, but Alex got a little better every time. Yassen held him to impossible standards, fifteen years of constant practice by someone who was widely considered one of the best in the business for a decade or more, but Alex enjoyed the challenge.

Next to Yassen, with scores to keep up with and an ever-changing rotation of guns, Alex lost all sense of time.

It wasn't until Alex squinted at the last target – acceptable accuracy by Yassen-standards, but he was still _seconds_ slower than he should be, damn it – that he discovered they had an audience when a low whistle broke the silence of the range.

Alex blinked. Turned around and found a class of students staring at them. He recognised Greer and Osborn as well as one of the more antisocial students from his own time there, but the rest were all new. New, and probably about a decade older than him on average.

Gordon Ross looked quite pleased with himself. Alex was reminded of his own arrival, when the man had talked Yassen into showing the students how shooting was supposed to be done.

Yassen had to have known they were there. He ignored them easily to glance at Alex's target.

"Acceptable." The word sounded very loud in the silence. "A little slower than usual. Regular practice will rectify that."

High praise. Alex bit back the first comment that came to mind – _wonder why, couldn't be because I just spent two months solid on undercover missions_ \- in favour of a swift nod. He understood perfectly well that it was no coincidence that Yassen's suggestion had brought them to the range in time for the students to see. Yassen wanted to make a point, and Alex wasn't about to ruin it by being a brat.

"Sir," he agreed, falling back into the role of Yassen's second.

Ross approached. He looked all the more delighted up close. "Cossack, a pleasure as always. And Orion. Congratulations on your graduation. That was an excellent kill."

Kill. Something about the word reminded him of the actual nature of his new life in a way that 'job' and 'assignment' didn't. "Thank you, sir."

He wasn't sure where a Malagosto instructor fit into SCORPIA's hierarchy but he was pretty sure it was somewhere well above a newly graduated operative, even one that was Cossack's apprentice. Politeness didn't hurt.

Ross smiled sharply – he had a beef with MI6, Alex had learned that much, and he seemed to take every one of Alex's good results as a personal victory against Blunt and the rest of that merry band of child abusers – and then he turned to Yassen.

"Can you spare a few hours for a lesson?" Ross asked. "Not too often you pass through the school. Hell of a time to track you down for that sort of thing and the kids need a wake-up call before we let them out in the real world."

Alex was sure that watching Yassen shoot, even if it hadn't been a proper lesson, would have been plenty wake-up call for them. It had certainly been for him, the first time Yassen had proven just why his reputation was so well-deserved.

"An hour," Yassen decided. "We leave tomorrow. The exchange needs to be arranged. We visited mainly for a check-up for Orion while our primary objective one enjoys Dr Three's hospitality."

Practised eyes took in Alex's appearance. "Any injuries?" Ross asked.

A glance at Yassen got him the permission he wanted. "Bruised ribs. Point-blank bullet into ballistic fabric. The target's guards didn't appreciate getting screwed over by a kid."

Ross nodded. "Proper undercover work's a bitch like that. Better opportunities for a good knife in the back, sure, but sniper rifles are a hell of a lot less risky."

Alex supposed he knew about the assignment. The basics, anyway. He didn't feel the need to ask if Ross meant knifing someone in the back in the symbolic sense or the physical one. He had the horrible suspicion it was both.

Yassen's glance flickered to the students, then back at Ross. "What lesson did you have in mind?"

Ross smiled grimly. "Terrify them. Some of them are a little cocky this time around."

Yassen watched the students coolly. Alex knew him well enough to see the man mentally sort through a number of options before he settled on one. To their credit, none of the students-slash-victims squirmed under his scrutiny.

"They've already been given a display in acceptable skills with ranged weapons, but it's been a little too long since I've had the opportunity to practice proper close combat. Orion has strict instructions to allow his ribs the time to heal. Which ones are your best students?"

Ross' smile grew wider. Alex suppressed a shudder. He wasn't sure what the current class had done to earn the man's vindictive wrath and he didn't think he wanted to know. As Alex settled down to watch Yassen prepare to utterly take apart and humiliate Ross' hand-picked victims, he was just grateful he wasn't one of them.

* * *

They left for Riyadh the following morning. Yassen, Alex, and Sagitta, along with a number of weapons and several of their primary objectives. Dr Three's main assistant and two guards were along to ensure Ramos wouldn't suffer from any last-minute complications.

They would split up before the exchange. Ramos would be kept elsewhere with a live video feed as evidence of his good health. Yassen dropped the surprise of the day on Alex when they had already taken off.

"You're handling the exchange. You need to look like Alex Rider as well."

It took Alex a second to comprehend the words. He was about to demand an explanation but shut his mouth again before he could and thought about it.

"Is that standard procedure for that sort of thing?" he asked instead.

"Normally they would send someone expendable."

The pieces clicked into place. "They want to show me off. I'm a walking advertisement."

"Yes."

That was just brilliant. At least Yassen didn't sugarcoat things.

"Between security and contingency plans, we will minimize the risks."

Minimize. Not remove. Alex supposed that was why SCORPIA's operatives were as well-paid as they were. They got paid to take those risks. He wondered briefly what MI6 had paid his father to go undercover. Probably a pittance compared to what he actually earned as one of SCORPIA's best assassins.

The weather when they landed was dry and hot, but several days in Abu Dhabi had already got him used to it and he barely noticed it anymore.

The actual exchange took place in a conference room in an expensive hotel in Riyadh three days later, set up with cameras and heavy security from both sides to the deal. The sort of place where neither could afford to draw attention, though. The FBI had arrived to arrange things days before the actual exchange, just like SCORPIA had. Alex felt like he was walking into the lion's den. He would just have to trust that Yassen, at least, had enough contingency plans in place to let him walk back out of there if anything happened – Ramos' survival being the most obvious one. He carried a laptop and a large duffel bag with the evidence they had found in Ramos' home, and the full script of the points he needed to cover memorised.

His hair was back to its usual fair colour with the dye stripped from it, though it was a little shorter than it had been a year ago. They had deliberately picked casual clothes that reminded Alex of what he had worn when he had still lived in London. He was armed, but weapons were easy to hide in a pair of baggy jeans and a shirt, and a small, almost invisible earpiece kept him up to date on anything that might happen. All in all, he looked more like Alex Rider than he had for close to a year.

It was a little unnerving to know that everything that was about to happen would be recorded and dissected by at the very least the FBI and SCORPIA, and who knew how many other agencies. Alex had more or less accepted it. He wondered what their files said about him now. It probably made for interesting reading.

An assistant led him to the conference room and opened the door for him. Alex was almost sure the man was FBI but he smiled politely, anyway, and stepped inside.

The probably-an-agent closed the door behind him and Alex found himself face to face with a familiar person across the room.

"Alex Rider." Joe Byrne's voice sounded resigned.

"Deputy Director Byrne. You weren't FBI last I heard."

That drew a faint, wry smile from Byrne. "God forbid. I'm still not. I'm here as a favour. We thought it might be you. SCORPIA doesn't have too many teenagers employed, and certainly not ones they would trust with something that valuable. And that young to boot … that narrows it down to just one."

"And since we've met in person before, they sent you to confirm, just in case I was the contact."

Alex wasn't even surprised, not really. He was just glad it was Byrne the FBI had convinced to do it, rather than someone from MI6. Sure, Byrne was the person who had managed to get Alex tangled up in the whole Skeleton Key mess, but he still struck Alex as a much better man than Blunt. Then again, that didn't say a whole lot and Alex knew it.

"Well, your employers certainly left enough hints about you. It was worth it if we could confirm your identity." A small grimace. Joe Byrne was an expressive man for a former agent. "I assume your presence means we've played host to Yassen Gregorovich as well."

Alex shrugged. Come to think of it, that realisation would excuse the grimace. "I can neither confirm nor deny SCORPIA business, sir."

"I didn't expect you to. You're a lot more respectful than I remember."

Considering that the last time they had talked had been right after Alex had been roped into the Skeleton Key operation, that was no surprise. "You do represent our client, sir."

"And Gregorovich doesn't tolerate backtalk, I imagine."

A year ago, Alex would have objected to the thinly veiled insinuations in that sentence. As it was, he sent Byrne a bland look. "If you say so, sir. Should we get on with business before one of the snipers get an itchy trigger finger and sets off a major international incident?"

Byrne shook his head. "Might as well. You have the floor, Rider."

Rider, not Alex. Not much of a surprise, either.

Alex nodded and forced his thoughts into the proper mindset. Remembered his thorough instructions. "The FBI, as our client, paid for the retrieval and faked death of the target, any evidence in his home, and the deaths of his closest underlings. They offered a bonus should the deaths and general destruction of the target's business be blamed on a competitor. As of this morning, the current theory with the Miami police was still that a rival had successfully eliminated the target."

Alex hauled the bag up and dumped it on the table. It was heavy. Very heavy. He ignored the sharp twinge in his chest that followed with the motion. He was used to it by now. "As agreed upon, the evidence found in the target's home, both physical and electronic. The death certificates and photographic evidence of his second and third in command's demise should fulfil that part of the request."

Byrne nodded. "Can't say I agree with their way to handle it, but at least they hired professionals. Ramos?"

Alex opened the laptop and placed it in front of Byrne. The image on the screen was a live feed of Ramos in a perfectly anonymous room. For security reasons, even Alex didn't know where. "At an undisclosed location in good condition. The address will be given upon my safe return. Any attempt to hinder me will result in his execution."

"Of course it will." Byrne didn't even sound surprised. Then again, Yassen had mentioned the CIA had done business with them before.

Part of Alex hated the script he had been given. Part of him, a small part that he didn't want to admit to, felt a little reassured by the sort of security in place. Proof that Yassen, at least, cared enough about his safety to lessen the risks. Alex Rider was property of SCORPIA, but at least they considered their operatives a valuable investment. For that alone, they had more of an incentive to keep him alive than MI6 ever did.

"My employers assume you have the necessary expertise to handle the interrogation. If not, an expert can be made available at the standard rate." Alex was vaguely proud that he managed to keep his voice level and steady through that offer, quoted word for word from his own instructions.

"I'm sure." Byrne's words were dry and distinctly unimpressed, both at the offer and the implications regarding their own methods. Alex didn't blame him. They both knew it was true but it wasn't polite to just bring it up like that.

Alex took a breath. "I trust everything is to the client's satisfaction, then."

Byrne glanced at one of the cameras. Long seconds later, he nodded. A reply from whoever was on the other end of the camera, probably. Alex had caught a glimpse of an earpiece. "Everything seems to be in order. One half of the remaining payment has been transferred. The other half will follow once we have Ramos in custody."

As expected. Alex had been briefed on how things would likely go. Everything had gone according to plan. Joe Byrne was a spook but he wasn't working for the CIA right now, and no one had any interest in triggering an international incident in Riyadh.

" _Confirmed,_ " Yassen's voice came through the earpiece. Alex remembered Jack cursing about slow bank transfers abroad. It was obviously different when the one doing the transfer was a government agency.

Alex nodded. "The money has been received, sir. If that was all ..."

He wanted to get out of there. Decently safe or not, he still felt trapped in the room.

Byrne watched him carefully. The sharp-eyed expression was unnervingly similar to a number of other powerful people with way too much of an interest in him that Alex had met. "You have quite a criminal record already."

"Wanted for the murder of Laurence Wright and for the bombing of an apartment in Singapore, wanted as a person of interest in a number of suspicious deaths in Singapore, and wanted for terrorist activities as a known member of a terrorist organisation," Alex summarised, then added helpfully, "that last one would be SCORPIA, not MI6. I know sometimes I get those two confused. It's an easy mistake to make."

Another week or two, he could probably add another few murders to that list, once the FBI got through with Ramos. He wondered if the CIA regretted borrowing him. He had seen the file MI6 had given their counterparts about him. It had a suspicious lack of mention of the exact circumstances of his missions with MI6 before he joined SCORPIA. They couldn't get away with ignoring them entirely, but the blackmail and the lack of training, backup, and any legal standing had been left out.

Byrne's expression was unreadable. Then he shook his head. "Yes, Rider. That would be all."

Alex nodded but didn't let the relief he felt show in his body language. He wanted to get out of there. He wanted to be anywhere else. The circumstances were unnerving enough without adding the fact that he had known this man, back when they were still on the same side of things … sort of, anyway.

He packed away the laptop and was almost out the room when Byrne spoke again.

"Alex."

Alex stopped by the door and turned to look back at him.

"You're a SCORPIA operative, a rogue MI6 agent, and Gregorovich's apprentice. You will be given no quarter." Byrne's voice was calm and quiet and the words all the heavier for it.

Alex nodded. "I know, sir."

MI6 would probably try to keep him as an asset if they got the chance. It would be a very Blunt sort of thing to do. Most others would consider him too dangerous to leave alive.

 _Thank you,_ he didn't say, though he appreciated the warning.

Byrne shrugged. _It was the least I could do,_ the gesture seemed to convey.

The assistant that guided him back out of the hotel again was the same that had led him there in the first place. Stepping outside, Alex felt adrenaline kick back in. SCORPIA had Yassen as well as Jarek of Sagitta watching the whole thing through a sniper scope. He didn't doubt the FBI had something similar.

In that moment, Alex was in the scopes of at least three people and probably a lot more, a number of them hostile.

Alex gritted his teeth and stepped fully out into the late noon heat, silently daring someone to take the shot. Let them know he wasn't afraid.

Right on schedule, a white Mercedes drove up to the hotel and stopped right in front of Alex. Armoured, of course. Everyone had agreed that was for the better.

" _Ours,_ " Yassen confirmed, though the fact that Ivey was behind the wheel had convinced Alex already.

Alex got in without a word. Waited until they had left the hotel far behind before he finally drew a relieved breath. Ivey glanced over.

"All right, sir?"

Alex was silent for a second. "I used to know him," he finally admitted. "Joe Byrne. My last mission for MI6 involved me being lent out to the CIA as a cover. Byrne had arranged it. The agents got killed. I got to finish the mission myself."

Unspoken was the fact that he hadn't had a choice. Ivey picked up on that just fine, anyway.

"Sounds like a charming bastard."

Alex stared out the window. They had a rendezvous point to get to, then out of Riyadh and back to Abu Dhabi. They already had another assignment waiting. He knew Yassen was listening in but didn't really mind.

"At least SCORPIA is honest about my job," he admitted. Now that it was over, he felt drained. "MI6 liked the _nice_ approach. They pretended they gave me a choice and then switched to blackmail when I didn't agree. SCORPIA never pretended my job would be anything but this. I knew what I agreed to."

A bit of a lie. Alex hadn't had the first idea of what he was getting into, but that wasn't what he wanted SCORPIA to hear if the conversation got back to them. And at least SCORPIA provided proper support and backup in a way MI6 never had.

Ivey didn't reply, focused on traffic, and Alex didn't speak.

There was a file waiting for them in Abu Dhabi. For now, Alex Rider would take the chance to rest.

* * *

Next: Interlude - a few outside POVs as Alex spent those eight months training and the world outside kept moving.


	22. Interlude: Shards

A/N: I've had a file going for a while with little snippets of outside POVs of the story. I finally managed to get part of it put together to something coherent, and since several people wanted it, I decided to post it as an interlude. I'm working on the next assignment and want to finish up the draft before the next chapter goes up, so it'll be the usual full week.

This interlude stretches from Alex's departure from London and to the early days of Operation Damocles. If anyone is interested in a second one (because I tend to end up writing a number of these to work things out as the plot moves along), let me know.

* * *

Jack Starbright was not a stupid woman.

When she woke up at noon with what felt like the worst hangover in years and an alarm that had been turned off, she knew something was wrong.

She ignored the dizziness and nausea and ran to Alex's room.

"Alex? Alex!"

The house was silent. Too silent. Something was wrong and every part of her knew it.

Jack Starbright was on the phone with the Royal & General ( _"I don't care if you don't know an Alan Blunt; tell him that Alex Rider is gone and to fix this because it's their fault!"_ ) before she had even finished the letter from Alex.

MI6 arrived within half an hour. Jack could say a lot about Blunt and his fellow child-abusers, but when said conscripted child ran away, they at least tried to do something about it. If nothing else, she thought spitefully, so they could use him again.

They would find him, they said. He was all on his own, they said. He wouldn't even manage to get out of London, much less out of the country. They would have him back within a day, they said.

For spies, Jack noticed, they said a lot, and all of it was utter bull.

* * *

It took some loud arguing, but Tom Harris got his letter. He read it in the kitchen of the Rider home while both he and Jack pointedly ignored the agent that watched them.

Tom read through it four times and held it up to the light before he finally put it down and looked at Jack.

"It's true?" he asked, though he didn't sound anywhere near as dubious as Jack would have expected.

"It's true," she agreed. She gripped her coffee mug tightly. "They blackmailed him, he nearly died several times, and now he's – somewhere. And no one knows where."

Tom was very quiet. It was not the Tom that Jack was used to, and it was never a Tom she wanted to know. When he spoke again, it was hesitant and a little lost. "Do you think he's all right?"

"They put an INTERPOL alert on him. They'll find him." It wasn't quite what Tom had asked, and she didn't think she managed to sound as confident as she hoped, but Tom just nodded and she knew he understood.

MI6 was sure they would have Alex Rider back in no time. Some uncomfortable, ominous feeling deep in Jack told her they were very, very wrong.

* * *

Jack wasn't surprised when she was brought in for questioning. Or that they brought Tom and the Pleasures along, too.

She told them to go to hell. When they brought in the grey Bastard in Charge himself, she told him the same. She ranted and raged, used every single word that would have seen her grounded or worse by her mother, and when she finally ran out of steam, Blunt still hadn't moved.

"Nothing useful, then," he said coolly.

Fury sparked in her eyes again. "This is _your_ fault," she snarled. " _Fix this!_ "

They would get Alex back, and then she would get him the hell away from there. Away from spies and spooks and creepy men in grey suits that saw him as nothing more than a particularly useful tool.

* * *

There was a mountain bike in one of Derek Smithers' workrooms, a sleek, lightweight thing that he had known immediately would be the perfect object to convert into a gadget for MI6's most unusual agent.

… Former agent, he supposed, though something in his chest clenched at the thought. Very little happened in MI6 that he did not somehow know about, and he had made it his business to keep aware of any developments in the hunt for Alex Rider.

As far as most of the outside world was aware, Alex Rider had run away on his own. An impulsive but understandable decision by a teenager pushed too far, too soon.

As far as MI6 was concerned, someone had helped that decision along. The escape had been too flawless, not a single trace left behind. Far more professional of a job than a fourteen-year-old could manage, even one trained as a spy. He simply didn't have the resources and connections required, and he certainly didn't have the ruthlessness to drug Ms Starbright for the sole purpose of an uninterrupted escape.

A number of other people did, and the task of narrowing down the list was made no easier by the fact that they didn't know if the assistant – possible kidnapper – had been friend or foe.

Had Alex Rider left willingly? No one knew. The letters had been written in his hand, but it could easily have been under duress or he could have been deceived.

Smithers had seen the list that the analysts had created. At the very top was Yassen Gregorovich. They had no proof, none at all, but few others had the means and possible motive to simply have a child like Alex Rider vanish.

The Rider home had been clean. Too clean, with no trace of evidence, none at all, and that took training.

Yassen Gregorovich had spared Alex Rider on a rooftop high above London. With every day that passed without progress, it looked increasingly likely that the man had returned for John Rider's only child.

The Rider family had always possessed the luck of the devil. Derek Smithers could do nothing now but hope it would hold when it mattered the most.

* * *

Gordon Ross returned in late September with a thorough report on Cossack's pet. Kurst supposed that meant he hadn't just shot the boy.

Hopefully that was good news to some degree. They could use that after the utter failure that had been operation Invisible Sword.

Ross entered the office after a polite knock on the door and placed a slim folder on the desk. Kurst arched an eyebrow in a silent question.

"He'll be a good investment, sir," Ross summarised his trip in a brief sentence before he started his report proper at Kurst's brief gesture. "Cossack's trained him ruthlessly. Honestly, probably better than we could have done ourselves. He knew I could have him shot on the spot, so he did his absolute best, but even then he's shaping up to be Cossack's protégé in everything. Won't know for sure until his first mission, of course, but he's got all the signs of it. Cossack got him trained to obey immediately and without question. I kept pushing to see when he'd start to crack, but he never did. He's definitely been taught that talking back to Cossack gets him nothing but trouble. MI6 were bloody fools."

"We are certain this is not a deep cover mission?" Hunter had been an exceptional undercover agent. Kurst still hadn't let go of the anger that reveal had sparked. Hunter's offspring was young, but that didn't rule out the possibility that he was a puppet for someone else.

Ross shook his head. "Kid hasn't been trained for that sort of thing. He's been completely at Cossack's non-existent mercy for two and a half months. Outside of supply runs, I'm the only other human contact he's had. By the time they leave, it'll probably have been five months or more. MI6 would be idiots to risk that. By that point in time, Cossack could have turned an adult, trained operative into a sleeper agent, never mind a conscripted fourteen-year-old backed so far into a corner that SCORPIA sounded like the safer alternative."

Sleeper agent. That little option was filed away somewhere in Kurst's mind but wasn't mentioned further.

"The life expectancy of a professional assassin isn't impressive," Ross concluded. "If you want someone trained to Cossack's standards, most of our students are too old. You need to start a lot younger than most armies recruit at. You need someone like Rider."

A part of Kurst had already resigned himself to that when the board had unanimously put Alex Rider's fate in the hands of his biggest detractor – Zeljan Kurst. Of course the little bastard would be competent. He obviously took after his father, and Cossack had a soft spot for the family.

Train him mercilessly, then. Test him, hold him to impossible standards, and if he passed … Kurst supposed the board would give the brat a chance. If he was worth anything, he would be a stronger and far more valuable operative for it. SCORPIA had little use for coddled children.

Kurst waited another long moment. Ross didn't move.

Finally Kurst glanced at the report. Nodded. "Give him a place at Malagosto. He gets the chance to prove himself. The board wants regular reports. Remove him from Cossack, let him stand on his own. If he does not live up to expectations …"

He did not need to complete the sentence. Ross nodded and left without another word. Alex Rider's survival had been assured for at least a little while longer.

* * *

MI6 got little information from Julia Rothman but they got enough. Enough to clean up Invisible Sword. Enough to remove several SCORPIA contacts and operatives in Britain. Enough to have their worst fears confirmed: Alex Rider was somewhere in Russia in complete isolation with no other company than Yassen Gregorovich.

Alan Blunt tried to order Tulip Jones' security rating upgraded. The woman in question managed to argue it back down.

"He knows the truth about Albert Bridge already."

Blunt blinked, expressionless. "If Rothman didn't lie."

"She didn't." Jones sounded utterly certain. "Alex knows the truth. MI6 did not kill his father, SCORPIA did. Alan, this is Alex Rider. He is not an assassin."

"After three months with Gregorovich, Alex Rider is whatever that man wants him to be. He's SCORPIA's now. Don't allow your sentimentality to get in the way."

Maybe Gregorovich wanted revenge – on them, or on John Rider through his son. They didn't know.

Blunt glanced at Alex Rider's file. Then he handed it to Jones. "Alex Rider is a wanted terrorist. Find him, preferably alive. We haven't had a SCORPIA trained operative since his father."

Alex had yet to set foot in Malagosto. It didn't change the fact that Yassen Gregorovich was perfectly capable of training Hunter's son to his satisfaction. The boy had once more managed to get himself tangled up in something far above his pay grade through poor impulse control, but Alan Blunt could make it work for them. He always did.

Tulip Jones thought of the boy she had met before Cornwall, of the boy that had grown less of a child and more an experienced agent through each of his missions. She didn't know what had gone through his head when he had accepted Gregorovich's offer, but she thought she had a good idea.

 _Anything but MI6._

His letters had brought up worries about the safety of Starbright and Harris, but even that was suspect. Gregorovich had undoubtedly read over Alex's shoulder as he wrote them, if not outright dictated the content.

She hoped that wherever he is, he was at least all right, but she knew just as well that it was a hollow hope.

Alex Rider had accepted Gregorovich's offer, but MI6 had pushed him to that point in the first place. MI6 had made that first mistake, and now Alex Rider got to pay the price.

* * *

The suited bastards updated Jack when they felt like it and probably with a very edited version of the truth. She didn't trust them as far as she could throw them and she still didn't that day in late September when they approached her in Washington.

She hadn't even had time to settle in properly. The Bastard in Charge had tried to convince her to stay – in case Alex came back, they had claimed. To serve as bait, more likely.

Jack had been on the first flight back to the States after that.

 _Yassen Gregorovich, the assassin that killed Ian Rider -_

 _\- a safe-house in Russia, trained in isolation -_

 _\- he is dangerous, Ms Starbright, not the boy you knew anymore -_

 _\- wanted for terrorist activities -_

Jack threw them out before they could finish their speech, all insincere sympathy and fake concern. She did get enough to understand the gist of it.

Alex Rider had faced a choice between MI6 and the assassin that had killed his uncle, and he had picked the assassin. That said everything Jack needed to know about Alan Blunt right there.

She wiped her eyes angrily but the tears refused to stop. With a choked sound she curled up on the couch and let them fall, anger and fear and worry in a tangled knot of raw misery. She should have done something. Anything. She wasn't sure what, but who else would have?

 _Oh, Alex._

* * *

In the aftermath of the Skeleton Key clusterfuck, Joe Byrne had set up an alert on Alexander John Rider. A small part of him felt bad for using the kid as part of a cover in the first place, however well it had turned out. The kid had almost been killed multiple times and MI6 hadn't seemed to care all that much.

So he had set up an alert, just in case. A small way to keep an eye on the kid the world owed so much.

A week later, Alex Rider was reported missing and it was serious enough that MI6 had pushed the alert through INTERPOL.

Joe wasn't in a position to get a lot of details, even with his influence, but he got enough to gather that MI6's child agent had done a runner and covered his tracks with all the efficiency one would expect from a trained spy.

Then Damian Cray had happened and Joe Byrne forgot about the alert and the runaway kid.

The kid remained out of sight and out of mind until seven weeks after the Cray disaster, shortly after the barely averted SCORPIA attack in London, when Alex Rider's INTERPOL listing was upgraded.

 _Wanted for terrorist activities_ was as far as Joe got before he muttered a heartfelt curse, rubbed his eyes tiredly and called for a new cup of coffee.

Terrorist activities. A fourteen-year-old MI6 agent. Jesus.

This time Joe got the details. Some, at least – he wasn't about to believe that the bastard Blunt had given him everything. It didn't make for nice reading. It also put him in the unpleasant situation of having to explain to his immediate underlings, the people who actually kept an eye on everything, just what sort of thing the CIA had ended up involved with on mostly-accident.

"Welcome to a political nightmare. This is Alexander John Rider, MI6, fourteen years old," Joe began and dumped the file in the middle of the table with the kid's photo on top. "No, it's not legal in any civilized country. No, he didn't volunteer. No, MI6 doesn't care. We used him as a cover for two of our agents. When they got killed, he was forced to finish the mission alone. He saved most of Europe from nuclear contamination and the world from a possible World War Three. He was the agent in Murmansk that stopped Sarov. He's the son of John Rider, who was a deep cover MI6 agent with SCORPIA and a young Yassen Gregorovich's mentor."

The room was silent. Joe sighed. "As far as everyone knew, the kid had enough and did a runner on his own about a week after the Murmansk op. Then the Brits caught Julia Rothman for long enough to interrogate her after the London attack. Alex Rider was approached by Gregorovich with the offer to join SCORPIA. Rider agreed. That's the situation right now. A highly-skilled, fourteen-year-old MI6 operative that was more or less blackmailed into the job, in possession of highly classified secrets, in the hands of Yassen Gregorovich."

Martino did the mental math. "For eleven weeks? The kid is dead or brainwashed by now."

"According to the intel, SCORPIA is quite pleased with how his training has turned out," Joe said, a little bitter. "He apparently knows his father was a double agent loyal to MI6. Doesn't care in the least. Gregorovich has him thoroughly trained and obedient. Rider was raised by his uncle, an MI6 agent, and a housekeeper, with the uncle frequently absent with little to no warning. Psych eval says Gregorovich is probably the closest thing to a stable parental figure he's had. This is the kid who stopped Sayle and Grief. He was dangerous to begin with, and now he's in SCORPIA's grasp."

The words were grim, made all the worse by the fact that photo Byrne had left on top of the file was very obviously that of a child and not a trained agent. Alex Rider looked his fourteen years.

"MI6 wants him alive. They consider him a potential _asset._ " Byrne's voice left little doubt just what he thought of that. "SCORPIA-trained operatives aren't exactly easy to lure into intelligence service."

"Not when the penalty for treason is death," Andrews muttered. " _Jesus._ "

Martino rubbed his face. "Right. So what are we supposed to do?"

And wasn't that the question Byrne hated the most. "There's very little we _can_ do. Keep an eye out for him. Hope to hell he regains his senses and gets a chance to get away." The odds of that were small at best, but he didn't need to say that. They all got that just fine. "If we manage to capture him … treat him like what he is. A fourteen-year-old that saved a few million people and made a stupid mistake in the aftermath because his agency dropped the ball. Don't drop your guard, don't forget that Gregorovich trained him, but don't forget he's a kid, either. He's not a terrorist. He's a teenager who should be worried about school, not blackmailed into MI6's service. If anyone treats that kid like an actual terrorist without a damn good reason, I will personally ensure that their next assignment is a five year deep cover mission counting goats in the most miserable, remote hellhole I can find. We owe him that much."

The small group of people around the table were quiet. Then Martino nodded and the rest followed suit.

There wasn't much Joe Byrne could do for now, but that much he could. They owed Alex Rider and if that was all he could do to help, then by God, he would do that.

* * *

The first glimpse the students of Malagosto got of Alex Rider was that of a brunette teenager accompanied by Yassen Gregorovich while Gordon Ross gave a tour of the compound. A glimpse and then gone again, vanished into another building.

Rumours being what they were, it didn't take much to figure out that the kid – fourteen, fifteen at the most – was John Rider's son and Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice.

Gregorovich himself reappeared with Ross an hour later, just in time for the next lesson. Ross gleefully let him take over as guest lecturer.

What followed was forty-five minutes of pure terror and a clear reminder that whatever they might think, nothing about Gregorovich's rumoured skills with weapons was exaggerated. The look they got when he saw their initial scores – perfectly decent scores, good enough to pass Gordon Ross' standards – was clearly unimpressed. He managed the same with barely a glance at the targets, and his aim when he actually focused was downright chilling.

Gregorovich's expression never changed through the whole thing; cold and emotionless, intimidating from a distance and magnitudes more up close. They got the distinct impression that if any of them had genuinely annoyed him, he would have shot them without a second thought.

By the end of it, he turned to Ross, a cool glance at the rest of them the only acknowledgement they got.

"I expect Alex's skills to remain acceptable." _Unlike the rest of them_ went unsaid but clearly understood.

"Trained to your standards," Ross agreed. "That was pretty clear during his assessment. I'll keep an eye on him."

"Push him as needed. He knows not to slack."

The glint of anticipation in Ross' eyes promised hard work in Alex Rider's future. Gordon Ross liked to demand the impossible of his most talented students.

Gregorovich nodded once and left without a second look. Someone let out a slow breath. Any jealousy anyone might have felt for the kid mentored by Yassen Gregorovich was crushed by the fact that it was _Yassen Gregorovich._ The man was merciless, with no patience for mistakes and even less for incompetence, and the kid had spent five months under his tutelage. The fact that Alex Rider was still alive spoke volumes about his skills and potential.

There would be no jealousy, no pettiness, and absolutely no questions about his right to be there. Alex Rider would be treated like what he was – Yassen Gregorovich's protégé, his likely chosen successor, and every bit as dangerous as a trained operative. Rider hadn't graduated yet, but if those were the standards Gregorovich expected him to live up to, his success was a given.

Malagosto's current group of students had been given a unique possibility to get on the good side of Gregorovich's apprentice. A number of them planned to take it.

* * *

The surveillance photos from the United Arab Emirates arrived in early December. Mrs Jones placed them on Blunt's desk without a word.

He picked them up. Flipped slowly through them.

"There is a ninety-five percent probability that the figure is Alex," Jones spoke when he had reached the last of them. "He will have grown, but we have a good estimate based on John's build."

"His companion?"

"Less certain." It appeared to be an adult male, after all, in a compound that was mostly just that. Alex was still a teenager, at least. Still build more like a child than a soldier. "Their best guess is Yassen Gregorovich."

"Come to deliver Hunter's son to Malagosto for the finishing touches to his education." There was no emotion in Blunt's voice, no sign at all of what he thought of the development. He handed the photos back to Jones. "Keep an eye on him. We need to know if they move him elsewhere."

* * *

Malagosto had no specific requirements to be accepted. Just by nature of the training, most of the students did tend to fit roughly in the same box – usually male, in their mid-twenties, and with military background – but it was never a requirement. There were always some that stood out a bit. Collins knew he was definitely in the older range of things at thirty, but with a background as a quite successful contract killer already, SCORPIA hadn't minded his age at all. Samuel was twenty; younger than Malagosto's usual students but like Collins himself, he had qualities that made it worth the larger than usual risk. SCORPIA rarely recruited older or younger than that. Yassen Gregorovich had been a teenager, but his potential had to have been obvious already then.

Alex Rider had taken every last one of those expectations and ground them into the dirt.

SCORPIA had made no secret of the fact that they considered him an adult at fourteen and expected him to keep up with the rest of the students. No concessions were made for him. He was held to the same standards as the rest of them, at least in theory. In reality, they had all noticed that the instructors pushed him, and pushed him hard. If Gregorovich's talk with Ross was any indication, they had probably all been given instructions to hold Alex Rider to Gregorovich's standards, and never mind the fact that he was still a kid.

Collins had a nephew a year older than Rider, a little useless but a decent enough kid that had been mostly focused on girls and video games the last time Collins had seen him some ten months prior. He tried to imagine his nephew in Rider's place, with fourteen- to sixteen-hour training days, six or seven days a week, and couldn't get the image to fit at all. Rider never voiced a word of complaint. If the instructors pushed, he worked harder. Collins was starting to get a good idea of the sort of training Gregorovich had put him through, and it wasn't a pretty picture.

Alex Rider had arrived at Malagosto at fourteen pretty much as a fully trained operative, well ahead of all of them in terms of weaponry and comfortably mid-range in terms of close combat – which, given the fact that he was _fourteen_ and training against experienced adults was pretty damn impressive on its own. Gregorovich had left him there with the clear expectation that he would improve further.

Once the novelty of it all had passed, for the most part Malagosto – students and instructors alike – took to seeing Alex Rider as just a slightly smaller adult.

For the most part. Occasionally, just occasionally, Collins would look over and realise just how _young_ Alex Rider was.

Curled up in the shade of a palm tree, in casual clothes, with a bottle of water, and intently focused on his language course – Arabic, as per Gregorovich's instructions as well – Alex Rider looked like any other fourteen-year-old boy doing his homework.

Not like Gregorovich's apprentice, not like a trained killer, but just a fourteen-year-old kid who was in way over his head.

* * *

Resistance to interrogation had always been SCORPIA's preferred way to draw out undercover agents. Drugs had always been a useful way to test those students they wanted a better idea of. The combination of the two meant that very, very few undercover agents ever made it out of Dr Three's domain.

They'd had students, good ones, who had broken long before the two weeks. Some had shown reactions to the drugs that had been clearly undesirable in a trained operative.

Paranoia. Terror. Panic. Aimless aggression. Focused aggression and the attempt to escape was always a delight to see, a rare jewel under such heavy drugs. Aimless aggression served no one.

Alex Rider was calm. Still under Cossack's hand, with the man crouched down next to him. On the hazy border between full sedation and awareness, with unfocused eyes and blinking ever so slowly, but he never moved from where he rested on the floor. He could have, certainly, with some effort – he was not that far gone yet – but he never did.

Cossack's hand remained on his arm, and perhaps that was the reason right there, Dr Three understood.

Obedience. Cossack had trained his student well.

Perhaps the child was too far from coherent thought to understand what was happening, but he recognised Cossack's presence on a deep, subconscious level. This was his mentor's will, and so he obeyed.

It was, Dr Three decided, a good sign of things to come. He looked forward to reading Dr Steiner's conclusions from the recording.

* * *

Alex Rider turned fifteen on the thirteenth of February. Jack Starbright spent the day curled up in a blanket, flipping through albums with red eyes and the sting of tears. Tulip Jones watched the most recent surveillance photo of the boy – from late January – and felt a pang of guilt for the child they had forced into a world he had no place in.

 _Happy birthday, Alex Rider._

* * *

Alex Rider appeared on a surveillance photo of Malagosto on the second of March. He did not appear again.

A large flower bouquet with a card addressed for Ian Rider arrived at the Royal & General the day after Laurence Wright had been assassinated. _Joyous congratulations on the graduation of your nephew._

The signature was a small, black scorpion.

Alex Rider had graduated Malagosto.

* * *

MI6 approached Jack Starbright in Washington to explain to one of Alex Rider's few remaining relations that the boy had murdered a man in cold blood.

Jack kicked them out with a furious, " _And whose fault is that?!"_

She watched from the windows until she was sure they were gone. Then she curled up on the couch and cried for Alex and for the life he should have had, far away from MI6 and SCORPIA.

* * *

Joe Byrne looked at the update he had received. Then he went and got himself another cup of coffee, waving off his assistant's worried look.

He would need to brief his people. Update Alex Rider's file. Ask Blunt what the hell MI6 had actually done to find the kid.

For now, Joe Byrne stared at his cup of coffee and wondered at the sort of events that had taken a brave, stubborn, defiant kid who had done the right thing even at the risk of his own life and turned him into the youngest Malagosto graduate on record.

If Yassen Gregorovich had wanted to make a point, he had certainly succeeded.

* * *

"I understand congratulations are in order, Ash." Brendan Chase's voice sounded cheerful and belied the viciousness right beneath the words.

Ash didn't want to ask. He knew he had to, anyway. Chase liked his little games and life was easier if you played along. "For what?"

"Your godson's graduation. You _did_ know he just graduated Malagosto, didn't you? Excellent reports all around. SCORPIA is proud of him."

Ash had heard rumours. Cossack training Hunter's son. He had ignored them and pretended he hadn't heard. A can of worms he preferred to stay just the way it was – closed and out of sight. He wasn't surprised Chase brought it up now. Like most of the board, the man had a distinct touch of sadism around people he didn't like and Ash was on the list. He didn't know why, and he supposed it didn't matter. There was nothing he could do about it, anyway.

He cursed the circumstances that had brought Chase to Bangkok, whatever they had been.

"How do you know he's not an undercover agent?" _Like Hunter. Like – John._ It would be just like Blunt to send a child to infiltrate SCORPIA when adults had been killed trying the same.

"Why, if I didn't know better, I would think you _wanted_ your godson killed?" That sadistic touch again. "His graduation was the assassination of an MI6 agent. Laurence Wright. You might have met him, he was stationed right here in Bangkok for a while. A perfect head-shot. Didn't even hesitate. I think he wanted to make Cossack proud. You remember Cossack, I'm sure."

The man who had ruined Ash's life? Yes, he remembered him. Painfully.

"Cossack trained Alex in complete isolation for five months before he brought him to Malagosto. No other human contact but him. He's known for a sharp tongue, our Alex, but Cossack has him trained well. Perfect, immediate obedience. If Cossack speaks, Orion obeys without question."

Ash remembered the energetic, curious four-year-old he had seen before he had left for Australia. He remembered the files he'd read through in a moment of morbid fascination – _of weakness_ – and couldn't imagine John Rider's son like that. Alex Rider was intelligent but impulsive, clever and a stubborn survivor, but someone who still couldn't keep from mouthing off to people much more dangerous than himself.

Ash remembered the assassin who had put a knife through his stomach and the stories he had heard since then and felt a pang of pity for the kid.

SCORPIA might be proud of Alex Rider – of Orion, of all the names to give him – but Ash could vividly imagine the methods it had taken to get there.

Ash was a shitty godfather and he knew it, but even he wouldn't wish that on anyone. Not even on the living, breathing reminder of the friend he had killed fifteen years ago.

* * *

In an expensive house in Singapore, Alexander Owen had fallen asleep against his father on the couch, surrounded by maps and files and reports, and unaware of the number of people who had taken an interest in him. Three days straight of eighteen-hour workdays and less than four hours of sleep at night had taken their toll.

Joanne Owen had retired for the night. The house was silent.

Yassen Gregorovich glanced down at Alex Rider, fifteen years old and looking every bit his age. Just a child for all that he was already Yassen's height; a miniature Hunter who deserved so much better than what he had been given. Yassen brushed a hand through the newly-cut hair and watched the familiar features of the boy's face, untouched by the tension and stress that marred it when he was awake.

Then he reached for one of the decorative blankets, used it to cover Alex, and returned to the sprawling mess of files on the table.

They still had work to do, but Alex's contributions could wait until the morning.

* * *

Next: What is it about supervillains and exotic bases?


	23. Fer de Lance

A/N: The _Fer de Lance_ is the lovely lady we meet when Yassen arrives in _Eagle Strike._ It's never stated if she belongs to Yassen or SCORPIA (or if she's a charter), so I went with her being Yassen's. Based on the description in the book (the hallway with the cabins), she's somewhat larger than the _License to Chill_ and requires a crew for that reason. With those assumptions out of the way, I figured she would have to be for practical uses, which in turn means she's got pretty long range for a luxury yacht. You might notice a lack of Raoul, too. Yassen came close to killing him in _Eagle Strike_ when the man messed up the placement of the bomb meant for Edward Pleasure. I figured it wasn't a stretch to imagine he had messed up badly enough at some point, then, that Yassen had actually disposed of him for incompetence. As a final note, I've stuck to the spelling in the copy of _Eagle Strike_ I used for reference – _Fer de Lance –_ and not the actual name of the snake, _Fer-de-lance._

* * *

They received their new assignment from Dr Three. Alex wondered if the man happened to be the only board member in the area, or if he had passed some sort of unknown test. Either way, Alex was happy not to have to deal with Kurst.

"Excellent work," Dr Three said when they met him back at Malagosto, his usual haunt. "Both of you. Excellent work."

His attention lingered a second longer on Yassen. Alex wasn't sure what it meant and he knew better than to ask. He just filed it away along with the fact that Yassen had been put in charge of a large-scale operation.

Their assignment was less envelope and more a sealed dossier, probably an inch solid of papers.

"Your new assignment," Dr Three said. "It is not a SCORPIA operation, but we have been paid to provide additional security and assistance for a … personal project that SCORPIA has taken an interest in as well. Iohannes Graff is the owner of Graff-Merian Pharmaceuticals and the former executive chairman of its board. Officially he retired from the company three years ago to spend time with his family."

Alex loved the word 'officially'. It promised all sorts of problems.

"In reality, Graff was heavily encouraged to retire when the board became disturbed by his casual approach to human experimentation. They did not appreciate a visionary in their midst."

And there was the word 'visionary' combined with 'human experimentation'. Alex would bet good money that Graff was nuttier than a fruit cake. Right up there with Sayle and Grief, and Alex had just been hired as his security.

He was vividly reminded of Yassen in Cornwall, providing security and general trouble solving for Sayle. Whoever paid. It didn't matter who they were or what their plans were. But wasn't that why he had joined SCORPIA to begin with? To be in a position to do something the next time a megalomaniac with a grudge against the world decided that the best way to get even was to make _everyone_ pay.

"Graff's pet project is an airborne drug that makes the victims unusually susceptible to suggestions and commands. SCORPIA has a significant interest in a drug like that. Your assignment is to provide security and evaluate the drug. He is aware of our interest and status as potential customers. His own security people have proven incompetent. He has already been targeted twice by intelligence agencies. Ensure it will not happen a third time. Cossack, you will represent SCORPIA's interests as needed."

Yassen nodded slightly. Considered the situation. "With the interest from unwanted parties, perhaps a combined military and security presence will be best."

"Guards for general security, and a combat team for any problems?" Dr Three asked. "Granted. I assume you have one in mind already."

"Commander Marcus' men have proven capable and safe around civilians. They are new enough to be malleable."

 _Safe around civilians._ The words sent a small chill down Alex's spine. They implied that some of SCORPIA's combat teams most definitely weren't safe around civilians, and he really didn't want to know exactly what that meant.

Dr Three didn't look surprised. "Agreed. Arrange it. Look through the assignment and arrange for what guards you will need as well. Dismissed."

With a solid inch of material to go through, Alex knew exactly what they would be doing the rest of the day.

Sometimes he really missed normal homework.

* * *

As it turned out, Dr Three had left out a few minor details. For one, Graff had retired to a private island off of the coast of Panama. It wasn't just security for a compound with a hidden research lab but an entire _island._

For another, Graff had retired there with his family. Wife, kids, and a full staff to cater to their every whim. Yassen had to have known. That was why he had wanted someone 'safe around civilians'.

Of course the man was a billionaire, too. If there was anything Alex had learned from MI6 and a year full of terrorist attacks and other disasters, it was that billionaires were crazy. Some millionaires, too, probably. Alex Rider was open-minded like that.

Sayle had been a billionaire. Grief had to have had a lot of money to set up something like Point Blanc as well, and the same went for Sarov and his 'visionary' ideas. Then there was Cray, and Drevin, and whoever had paid for that artificial earthquake – because that definitely hadn't been cheap.

By this point, Alex had more or less accepted that a billionaire was really just a wannabe supervillain that hadn't managed to find the right plan yet. No wonder something like SCORPIA made so much money catering to those people.

No outsiders really knew what went on in the research facility on the island yet, but that was only a matter of time. The two attempts to infiltrate the island had been done by the CIA, who thought it was a little too close to home shores and wanted to make sure nothing untoward was going on, and the Russians, who had received a tip. Both agents had vanished without a trace.

An entire island with civilians, a secret research lab, and enough shady rumours to have drawn the attention of two powerful intelligence agencies. Their job just sounded better and better. Alex hadn't checked how much they got paid for it, because he honestly wasn't comfortable knowing, but he knew it had to be a lot to get _Yassen Gregorovich_ assigned to security detail rather than something a little more hands-on and lethal.

At least the files were exceptionally thorough. Someone had done a lot of research, possibly because SCORPIA was a potential customer. They would want to make sure the man was legit.

Iohannes Graff looked perpetually startled, that was Alex's first impression. Fifty-one, average height, black hair – probably dyed – and tanned from years of retirement on a tropical island. And perpetually startled. He looked utterly harmless. Then again, Dr Three looked like a retired schoolteacher more than anything, and he was a world-renowned expert on torture, so really, Alex knew better than to judge based on that.

Graff was also incidentally the only of the three owners of the company still alive. He was the second generation of his family in charge. Three children had inherited the company from Iohannes Graff the elder. The daughter had died in a helicopter crash; there had been no husband or children to inherit her share. The younger son had died in a car crash – himself, and his wife and three children. Both accidents had conveniently taken place half a world away from Graff himself and within a year of each other. Alex was not surprised that the official investigations had ruled both events as unfortunate accidents.

Graff's wife was four years younger than her husband according to the files and looked even younger than that. Like her husband, she looked harmless. She was American, with short, blonde hair, blue eyes, and had a pleasant smile. They had met as students at MIT and hit off immediately. The file also noted that she had two degrees – a PhD in chemistry like her husband, and an medical degree on top of that – and that she was the one who had convinced her husband to contact SCORPIA to handle security.

Mrs Graff made a very good impression of being just a trophy wife but Alex got the distinct impression she was the more dangerous of the two. Based on the file, SCORPIA agreed.

They had two kids, a sixteen-year-old daughter and an eleven-year-old son. Both were enrolled in a hideously expensive boarding school in Europe and returned home only for the longer vacations. They would arrive in the last days of June and stay through the summer. Neither parent wanted them out of sight and kept them on the island, which sounded just fantastic. No trips anywhere for them, no visitors, no company, nothing. Alex couldn't imagine either of them handling that very well, and especially not a sixteen-year-old. Another headache for the list.

The staff was slightly better news. None of the had been there for less than a year, which lessened the risk that one of them might have been planted by some intelligence agency. One of them could still be a mole, but at least they didn't have a brand new staff to deal with.

Then there was the research lab. Hidden in the lowest level of the compound, beneath the surface-level living areas and the staff areas one level down, it had impressive security. Not that impressive security would mean anything if the security people in charge didn't do their job.

The final headache also revealed why Yassen had wanted Sagitta for backup. SCORPIA wasn't the only potential customer interested in the drug. There would be a number of potential customers gathered for a demonstration, complete with security of their own.

If said customers were anything like SCORPIA, Alex could already imagine the massive headache they would have to deal with. Just the thought of putting that many people in that line of work in close proximity for days was bad enough. If anyone outside caught even a whisper of it, or worse, if someone was compromised …

Alex stared at the file. Then he stared at Yassen until the man looked up.

"This is a clusterfuck," he said bluntly.

"Language," Yassen said mildly. "You shouldn't get into bad habits. There will be children present."

Because that would surely help on the clusterf... mess. Right. "We're going to need more than Sagitta if something happens. I recognise most of the names on the list and they're all bad news."

"The guards will be well-trained." Alex didn't know SCORPIA's training standards for their normal guards, but Yassen sounded certain. Good enough, then. "You forget that the customers, like SCORPIA, are there for business. It will be in everyone's best interest that things go smoothly. If everyone is prepared to defend themselves with lethal force, any attempt to cause trouble will carry the risk of death from a number of sources."

"It won't be in the best interest of whatever agent someone decides to send," Alex pointed out.

"Indeed," Yassen agreed. "Which is why we will be there."

"I'd still feel better with more people."

"Sometimes that is not an option." Yassen's reply closed that argument with calm finality. "SCORPIA's guards are well-trained. The vulnerabilities in security will be a result of civilian interference, which we will need to keep to a minimum. If Sayle had not decided to carry through with the ridiculous competition his people insisted on and if he had paid closer attention to his newly hired security staff, there is little reason to believe MI6 would have been able to stop him."

Ian Rider would never have been able to get inside. Would never have been killed. Alex would never have been sent to finish the mission but would have died along with every other school kid in Britain.

Suddenly, Alex was quite grateful for Sayle's refusal to listen to Yassen's advice.

Make do with what they had, then, and hope Yassen was right. Really hope he was right. The file of the small group of hand-picked prospective buyers was pretty much a who's who of INTERPOL's wanted list.

Hart had profited from a number of civil wars and supplied weapons and mercenaries to both sides of the conflicts on a regular basis. Veldt was wanted as the engineer behind half a dozen highly successful terrorist attacks. Sahu was a professional negotiator representing at least five anonymous clients – most likely several dictatorships and intelligence agencies, SCORPIA's own analysts noted. Marinescu represented SCORPIA's largest competitor, and Ruge was there on behalf of several major arms dealers. Alex wondered about the sort of parents that would let their children stay on the same island as those kinds of people.

A who's who of nasty people, but no one quite bad enough that it would be worth the political headache for any country if they decided to drop a couple of missiles on the island. It was still the home of a family and a private island owned by a man who had, according to all official records, done absolutely nothing worse than forget to pay a few parking tickets.

Maybe there were rumours of dubious deals and shady strategies, but nothing anyone could prove.

Graff was a cautious person when it came to that. Graff, or more likely his wife.

The meeting itself was almost two months into the future, but Alex knew perfectly well that there was a lot of stuff to do before then. At least that would give his ribs time to heal before they had to deal with that whole headache.

He had hoped he would be given a bit of downtime before they had to head out again. He'd been given a week after Singapore. Then again, Yassen had arranged that and it had been as a reward for Alex's obedience. Part of their deal, technically, but Alex was enough of a realist by now to see it for what it was.

Maybe there would be a bit of peace and quiet on the island sometimes, before they had to play host to a bunch of wanted criminals. They were hired for security, not murder. That was probably the best he could hope for. He was tired, and sore, and still had nightmares about crushing Bald's throat. He would have given anything for another week on the _License to Chill_ , far away from SCORPIA and the world.

Did SCORPIA operatives have the right to downtime? Alex didn't know. The contract hadn't mentioned it, though it did mention doctor-mandated time to recover after injuries. Nile had spent months at Malagosto, Alex remembered. Maybe bruised ribs counted. The cut probably didn't.

He didn't ask. Instead he just sighed. "When do we fly out?"

"We don't." Yassen glanced back up from the papers. "We will meet with Sagitta and the guards there. We have supplies that are best transported by other means, and you need time to recover fully from your injuries. I have arranged for different transportation for us."

To an island? Something in Alex that felt terribly like hope made his chest clench. Yassen must have noticed, because something in his eyes softened fractionally.

"You responded well to the _License to Chill,_ " he said. "I have arranged for similar transportation for us."

Right there and then, Alex didn't care if it was a reward or pity or both. All that mattered was the promise of time away from SCORPIA, for however long that might be.

* * *

They met with Yassen's private yacht in Egypt where she was docked in Alexandria. She had arrived just the day before from Greece with her crew. Huge and probably hideously expensive, Alex stared at the wide expanse of white and the sharp letters that made up her name.

 _Fer de Lance._

The name rang a bell. It took him long seconds to remember it as a vicious, venomous snake. Big surprise there.

It was even larger than the yacht in Miami. Large enough to need a small crew. Yassen introduced him to the men. The captain and first officer were Norwegian but the two deckhands were Middle Eastern – neither wanted to be any more precise than that – and the language on board became a mix of Arabic, English, and Norwegian. Alex suspected that part of the reason it wasn't all English was because Yassen wanted him to practice Arabic.

The captain's Arabic consisted mainly of maritime terms, sharp orders, and curses aimed at his crew. He mostly ignored Alex as Yassen's problem, which Alex was just fine with. The first officer doubled as the on-board mechanic and was only about thirty – two decades younger than his boss – and a lot more laid back, though his Arabic wasn't much better. The captain had regularly worked for SCORPIA. His first officer had only been at it for a few years but apparently had potential. The captain only cursed him out a fraction of the time compared to the two deckhands.

Deckhands that Alex got the uncomfortable suspicion were there on a trial basis. It was nothing he could put his finger on, just an unsettling suspicion that if they didn't prove up to par, they would simply vanish. The way failing Malagosto students did. The two men did their job but didn't speak all that much to anyone outside of that.

They stayed in Alexandria for two days to load the supplies they needed. Sagitta and the guards would fly to Panama after their downtime, while Yassen and Alex would arrive by boat. Alex had wondered why until he saw exactly the sort of supplies that got packed away in the hidden storage areas. A lot of it would probably be easier to just … not get near airport security and touchy officials in the first place. The harmless things would be brought in by more legal means. The heavy duty weaponry and the security set-up intended to kill or severely incapacitate … customs agents usually frowned on that sort of thing.

They had three weeks to get there. Enough time according to Yassen. Including resupply stops, they would arrive with a couple of days to spare. There would be time for delays if they happened. Alex wasn't sure why he was surprised to find that Yassen would take a daily shift sailing the yacht along with the captain and first officer. Eight hour shifts made sense, and Yassen had proven to be perfectly competent during their week on the _License to Chill._

The yacht was big enough that Alex had his own cabin which offered a bit of privacy. Unpacked and settled in, the cabin was closer to home than anything Alex had lived in for months.

His cabin on the _License to Chill_ had felt cramped and claustrophobic. This one was the same size but the bed was simpler and the room didn't have the decorative touches to remind everyone of just how wealthy the owner was. The cabin felt open, felt lighter, and something about it felt safe in a way that the _License to Chill_ hadn't. Sure, it helped that Yassen was right next door, but the simplicity of it all helped a lot more than Alex would have thought. He had room to move. Room to escape if he had to. The yacht was Yassen's and probably customised to his specifications, paranoia and all included. That did wonders for Alex's peace of mind.

Yassen normally took the morning shift. Alex spent most of that time in his company. Like in Singapore, Yassen had included a stack of schoolbooks in the supplies, and Alex went through most of them in the time it took them to reach the island. It felt weirdly normal. Doing homework like that. On a luxury yacht packed with illegal weapons, in the service of a terrorist organisation, and under the watchful eye of a trained killer, sure, but still.

The first officer usually took the night shift. Alex kept him company occasionally when he couldn't sleep or woke up from a nightmare and didn't want to go right back to it. It was very different from their week in Florida. Fewer other boats, less light, less life. The silence only broken by the sound of the engines, and the darkness outside only broken by distant lights at shore and impossibly clear stars and a moon so bright it almost hurt to look at.

They never spoke much, but it was nice company and the whole thing strangely soothing. The man did continue the lessons that Yassen had started on the _License to Chill_. He talked in slightly accented English about the instruments and the twin engines, about navigation and the dangers at sea, and Alex listened as attentively to those lessons as he had during any lesson at Malagosto. None of the crew ever commented on Alex's age – Yassen was not a boss that encouraged curiosity of any sort in his employees – but their interactions were still that little different for it. It wasn't pity but probably more the basic human nature that saw a kid, even a fifteen-year-old killer like Alex, as less of a threat than an adult would be. They could easily have brothers or nephews the same age as Alex, normal teenagers in the way he had never really been.

One of the deckhands handled cooking. Middle Eastern fare for the most part, a little spicy but very good. It was mostly unfamiliar to Alex and he enjoyed every new dish he got to try.

Unlike their week of downtime by the Florida Keys, this trip came with issues that Alex had never even considered. The first time the _Fer de Lance_ hit open water and Alex looked around and saw nothing but sea in all directions, he had to forcibly stop a sudden spike of panic and take a deep breath.

There was land somewhere beyond the horizon, this was just the Mediterranean and not the Atlantic yet, but right there and then, the entire world had become water. If anything went wrong, if the yacht broke or something happened or they started to sink …

Panic curled around Alex in cold tendrils, memories of Dr Three and the water he couldn't escape from and the air he desperately needed but couldn't get -

\- And a familiar hand touched his arm and Alex took a shuddering breath, then another. Revelled in the fresh air, freely available and so much of it he could cry.

"Alex?" Yassen's voice was low enough that it wouldn't carry past them, even though they were alone for now.

"Resistance to interrogation," Alex said softly. It wasn't like Yassen didn't know he had issues.

Yassen didn't respond but the hand stayed where it was, calm and reassuring. Alex's panic slowly eased.

"She is not a fragile toy meant to stick to shallow water," Yassen finally spoke. "She is perhaps not a true explorer type yacht but close enough, I think. She is built to cross oceans and weather storms. She will be safe."

Something in Yassen's voice sounded almost proud. Alex couldn't blame him. From the outside, the _Fer de Lance_ gave a foreboding, unwelcoming impression and she definitely didn't have the luxury of the _License to Chill_ on the inside, either, but she cut easily through the water, as graceful and lethal as her namesake. She wasn't meant for pleasure cruises but for work. She didn't need the large entertainment system or the luxury details.

"She sounds expensive." Alex didn't even want to guess at the price.

"She was a bonus, with the understanding that SCORPIA pays for her operating costs and in return can make use of her when I am busy elsewhere."

"A _bonus?_ " Alex repeated incredulously. Something the size of the _Fer de Lance,_ there was no way she had cost less than a million pounds, and probably double or triple that. "What the hell did you do, assassinate a president and blame it on MI6?"

Yassen's lips twitched slightly. "I found myself with a unique opportunity to take out the chairman, vice-chairman, and several high-ranking members of SCORPIA's largest competitor at the time. The board was exceptionally pleased with my initiative."

All right, Yassen was allowed to feel a little smug about that one, Alex would admit that.

The conversation had served its purpose, too. The panic was gone. The apprehension was still there, and Alex didn't think it would ever entirely go away until they were safely across the Atlantic, but he felt better.

"... Thank you," he said quietly.

"It's not surprising," Yassen replied. "Drowning is an instinctive fear, and Dr Three is a very skilled interrogator. Learn to control it but do not allow yourself to think of it as weakness. You did not break. Consider it proof of your strength."

That was a very Yassen way to see it. Alex nodded. It wasn't as easy as it sounded but he would just have to live with it. There were a lot of things he had learned to handle like that. One more didn't matter all that much.

* * *

The weather held. They caught some waves when they reached the Atlantic, remnants of storm to the west of them, but Alex didn't tend to get seasick and he was grateful for that now.

They would need to stop to refuel three times along the way. They spent less than a day in each marina but it was enough that Alex got to catch a glimpse of places he had never visited before. Casablanca was huge and sprawling but the temperature a lot milder than he had expected. Praia was tiny in comparison and much warmer. Both places they only stayed just long enough to resupply before they left again. Yassen and the captain both preferred the security at sea.

Alex obeyed Dr Javadi's instructions to the letter. He was careful with his stitches and didn't do anything that might damage his ribs any further. He worked out in Dr Javadi-approved ways. It was a bit of a novelty to have a doctor who actually cared. Jack had worried about the cuts and bruises he came home with, but MI6 hadn't seemed to care much beyond making sure he would actually live.

As a result of that, Alex's bruised ribs improved steadily day by day. Yassen removed the stitches from the cut on his back a week into their trip, and that was healing nicely as well. It would scar but nothing too bad. In time, it would fade almost completely and leave just a thin, white line.

Alex did not enjoy crossing the Atlantic – the thought of just how far from shore they were and how deep the water beneath them stretched was creepy and unnerving – but he learned to control the lingering fear. If nothing else, they were a long way from SCORPIA in the middle of the Atlantic, too. That helped a little on it.

With fair weather, good timing, and shorter than expected supply stops on their side, they reached the Caribbean a day early. Well ahead of schedule and with a decent forecast for the next week, Yassen decided to stay for two days in Barbados. A much needed break for all of them in a luxury marina before they continued on for the last stretch to the island.

The second day there, Alex got up, went through his usual morning routine only half awake, worked out with Yassen, passed by the large mirror in the lounge, caught a glimpse of himself, and just – stopped.

Stared. Reached up to run a hand along his jaw. Yassen caught his stare in the mirror.

"You need a shave." He sounded a little bemused.

Alex ran a hand across the slight, pale fuzz. "Yeah." He was fifteen. It shouldn't have been a surprise, and still …

He had Cheshire's basic supplies with him. There was a pack of cheap disposable razors somewhere in the bag, though he should probably get something better. Maybe a shaver. Yassen used a straight razor on the yacht. Alex wouldn't have the first idea of how to handle one of those. A quick supply run should get him what he needed. They still had a full day before they departed again. The same things Crux had taught him to use should do the trick. It wasn't like he would need to shave that often, anyway. It was just a bit of fuzz.

Something must have shown on his face, because Yassen frowned slightly. "Have you been taught how to shave?"

"Well, Crux taught me how to shave my legs. It can't be that much different. Cheshire's got a pack of razors, that'll do for now. I can always get a shaver later." He would look it up if he had to. There would have been no one to teach him, anyway. Ian had been dead for more than a year. He didn't even remember his father. It wasn't like they taught that sort of thing at school – normal school or Malagosto, for that matter. Alex ignored the sudden lump in his throat.

"A no, then." There was something in Yassen's voice Alex couldn't identify. "Come with me."

Alex followed him back to Yassen's own cabin and into the bathroom. With the size of the yacht and the main cabin, the room easily fit two people without being the least bit crowded.

Yassen directed him to stand in front of the mirror. Understanding dawned the moment Alex saw him bring out his straight razor and the other shaving supplies.

"We will buy what you need later. Your father should have been the one to teach you this," he said quietly. "He preferred this when it was an option. An indulgence more than a habit, but one that he enjoyed. A shaver or disposable razor is simpler but he preferred the skill involved. He taught me when I asked. Let me do this much for him."

The closest thing Alex had ever heard to genuine regret from Yassen Gregorovich. Alex swallowed and nodded. He didn't trust his voice.

"You can decide your own preferences," Yassen continued, just as quietly, "but he would have wanted you to have the option."

Alex nodded again. Tried to find his voice. "Thank you. Hot towel first?" He almost managed to keep his voice steady. He was proud of that.

"Hot towel or a shower," Yassen agreed. "But let us start with the basics. The strop."

It took most of half an hour before Alex had finished his first shave at Yassen's hands. The man was patient and explained quietly, meticulously as he went through the process step by step. He spoke more in that half an hour, Alex realised, than he had ever done at one time since the lessons at the safe-house in Russia or his instructions on the _License to Chill._

It should have been unnerving to have a sharp blade by his neck in Yassen Gregorovich's hands, but it never was. Even Alex's well-honed survival instincts felt nothing but perfectly safe, however deadly the man might be.

When they had finished and Alex stared in the mirror at his perfectly smooth, unbroken skin, he felt a little less like a child and a little more like he understood his mentor just a bit better.

* * *

Next: This isn't quite the tropical island vacation Alex would have liked.


	24. The Island on the Edge of Forever

A/N: The island is fictional. There is a Santa Catarina Island, though that is in Brazil, not Panama. I needed a good island for a supervillain base, and none of the real ones quite fit the bill.

Lolali: At this point, Yassen has spent a lot longer with Alex than he ever did with John. If my quick notes from _Russian Roulette_ got it right, that point passed when Alex was still in Russia.

* * *

Santa Catarina Island was located well off of the coast of Panama. It had been with its current owner for three years, and he had obviously spared no expenses to make the place his home.

It looked like something straight out of a travel brochure. Lush and green, it glowed even with the clouds that hung heavily above them as they approached shortly before noon. The forecast promised rain. The forecast promised rain for the next several days, Alex had noticed. Not continuous but a couple of hours, and a lot of it. They had arrived right at the start of the wet season. Alex had imagined endless sunshine. His expectations had apparently been a little off.

The _Fer de Lance_ settled easily along the floating pier and looked right at home against the backdrop of the island and the intricately designed buildings it supported. All of it looked deceptively harmless. The playground of a wealthy family instead of the research facility it doubled as.

There was nothing else around. Nothing but sea all around them, endless and blue. The mainland was somewhere beyond the horizon but it might as well have been an ocean away. Santa Catarina was perfectly isolated and perfectly private, and the perfect place to handle the sort of things that were best kept away from legal authorities. If a few inconvenient people vanished without a trace after a meeting with security … well, everyone knew not to ask unwanted questions.

Sagitta and the guards would arrive three days later. They would fly to the nearest airport, followed by helicopter for the last stretch. There was no place for even a small plane to land on the actual island, which left helicopter and boat as the only options.

Even on presumably friendly territory, Yassen still made sure that all security on the _Fer de Lance_ was in place as well. No one would get on board without his permission.

There was nothing to unload for now. The yacht would function as their mobile base and would house the weaponry and other supplies. Sagitta and the guards would stay on the island, while Yassen, Alex, and the small crew slept on board.

Graff's personal assistant was a woman around Yassen's age who greeted them with weary relief. Alex recognised her from the files.

"Mr Gregorovich, welcome to Santa Catarina. I am Sophie Guérin. We have spoken before."

Yassen nodded slightly in greeting. The woman's attention turned to Alex. She didn't look surprised at his age but then, she had probably seen at least some version of their files. Her greeting confirmed it. "And Mr Rider."

"Ma'am." Yassen Gregorovich could get away with cool indifference. Alex Rider could not.

Guérin nodded but continued right on.

"Mr Graff is currently otherwise occupied. He will see you at three. I will meet you here at a quarter to three, it's a bit of a walk. Any practical concerns you may have, please contact me." Two small business cards materialised from some pocket or another. There was nothing on them but a phone number. "A complete tour of the island has been arranged for tomorrow at nine. There is a staff dining room that you and your people are free to make use of if you wish. The kitchen staff is quite competent and has been warned of the influx of people."

There was a lot of information to keep track of in very few words. Alex got the impression she had a lot to do and very little time to do it in. If the previous security set-up had been as bad as they'd heard, maybe that wasn't a surprise. She certainly looked relieved to see them.

Alex wondered who had been responsible for hiring the previous security company. He wondered if the person was still alive. SCORPIA had killed people for less. Maybe wannabe supervillains did the same.

"We are set up for most standard necessities for watercrafts. If your yacht has any specific requirements, let me know and we will see to it. The full details of the island will be covered during the tour. Do either of you have any questions?"

Yassen didn't. Alex took his cue and shook his head as well. Guérin smiled briefly and a little rushed, and left them alone again.

Alex took a slow breath. "So Sayle ..."

"Was a loathsome little man with decently competent people around him. With some luck, Graff will be a little less trying to put up with."

What a cheerful, reassuring thought. It was a little unnerving, the lingering knowledge that if he had stayed with MI6, he might have been sent to infiltrate this very place. Maybe with an adult agent, like the CIA had done. A new member of the staff, and Alex along as his son, dodging security and hired assassins to find out the truth, armed with nothing more than a handful of gadgets. Now Alex was on the opposite side of things, one of those assassins hired to keep unwanted attention away.

Not about to stop those plans for revenge, or power, or whatever Graff wanted, but paid to help them succeed.

Yassen hadn't mentioned anything explicitly but Alex understood the unspoken order that he should find something a little more formal than his normal clothes before they met their employer. There was a large bag in one of the crates with his name on it and a stack of clothes inside, mainly several different kinds of uniforms. Alex had ignored it during their trip and stuck with casual clothes instead. Now it was time to suck it up and deal with it.

The uniform fit surprisingly well, much better than the one he had borrowed after Miami. Someone obviously had his measurements. The full version was too much for the climate, hot and humid and asking for a heat stroke. The more casual version included dark grey cargo trousers in a light, durable fabric, weapons according to personal taste, and a black t-shirt in ballistic fabric with a small, grey, stylistic scorpion embroidered over the heart and on the sleeves. Alex brushed his finger over it before he slipped the shirt on.

The uniform clearly went for visibility and intimidation rather than camouflage. Someone had been sensible enough to pack the jungle camo version as well, though Alex knew he would spend most of his time in the more visible version.

The person that greeted him in the mirror looked … very little like Alex Rider, to be honest. He looked older. Closer to the adult that SCORPIA considered him to be. His hair still had its natural colour and the Malagosto and Miami tan had never really gone away, but the uniform added an edge to it that he wasn't at all comfortable with.

The scorpion-symbols on the shirt left little doubt about his affiliation, and everything had clearly been designed to carry large amounts of diverse weaponry. With two guns and a pair of combat knives plainly visible, he didn't look like a soldier, he looked like a killer.

There was a glint of approval in Yassen's eyes when Alex appeared. The uniform looked a lot more fitting on Yassen, who wore it with casual ease. If he was bothered by the heat and humidity, it didn't show. If nothing else, the long trousers cut down on any mosquito problems.

Alex spent the wait doing homework. The last bit of normal life he would have for a while. The closest thing to normal life he had these days, anyway. Guérin arrived at a quarter to three exactly and led them to the main building and through a maze of hallways. It had started to rain about half an hour before but she had brought umbrellas for all of them, undoubtedly used to the weather. Like she had said, it was a bit of a walk, but she took the time to give them a brief, informal tour of the areas they passed by. Yassen had left the _Fer de Lance_ in the care of the crew. Everyone knew the punishment if something happened to her.

Graff met them in an air conditioned office with tall, broad windows that offered a clear view of the garden outside. They had barely met anyone on the way. The entire compound was unnervingly silent and and felt almost abandoned, like an empty hotel where time had just stopped. There was an assistant outside the office, a man in his fifties, but he utterly ignored them in favour of his papers. Guérin let them inside and closed the door behind them, leaving them alone with their client.

The man got up from behind his desk when they arrived. "Mr Gregorovich," he greeted. "A pleasure to finally meet you in person. It took a bit of planning and waiting to arrange for all of this, I'll admit, but I wanted the best and you have an exceptional reputation."

His English was a little accented but he spoke it with the ease of someone who used it regularly. Then again, his wife was American and he had studied at MIT. Alex wouldn't be surprised if English was the language they spoke together.

Yassen just nodded slightly, and Graff's attention shifted to Alex. A little bemused and a little sceptical, like he couldn't quite bring himself to believe what he was seeing.

"And Mr Rider. I didn't believe them when they told me your age, but here you are. Fifteen years old. An unusual age for an assassin."

"SCORPIA doesn't believe in wasting potential, sir." That seemed like the safe response. If there was just a bit of challenge in the words, Alex didn't think Yassen would really mind. "An operative that can pass for a child is a valuable asset."

Graff glanced at Yassen again. He still didn't look convinced. Sometimes Alex really missed Malagosto. Malagosto, and Crux, and Nile, and the other operatives that didn't have to bring up his age and credentials every time he met them.

He wondered if Yassen got just as annoyed. Every time someone questioned Alex's presence and skills, they also questioned Yassen's judgement by proxy.

Yassen met Graff's look with cool indifference. "Alex is former MI6. If there had been any doubts about his loyalties or abilities, he would have been executed on the spot. If you have surplus employees, a demonstration of his skills can easily be arranged." Calm threat and helpful suggestion all in one. Definitely annoyed.

The two of them met in a silent staring contest. Graff looked away first. "That won't be necessary. Your employers have a reputation for training some of the best operatives around. He's a little young, nothing more. He will stand out."

Alex almost expected annoyance from Yassen. Nothing noticeable to Graff but obvious enough to someone like Alex. There was nothing, though. Yassen looked like he had expected it.

"He will," Yassen agreed easily. Too easily, in Alex's opinion. "He already has an impressive reputation of his own. If you still wish for a more low-key assignment, Alex has served as security for a client's son before. There is no better security around questionable visitors such as your prospective customers than a Malagosto graduate as a bodyguard."

A client's son. The reminder of Jacob Sullivan sent a sharp twinge of guilt through Alex.

Graff seemed to consider it. He glanced at Alex again, then nodded. For the first time Alex appreciated that the uniform made him look that little bit older.

Yassen's attention turned briefly to Alex. A slight glance towards the door was all the dismissal Alex needed. "Sir," he acknowledged with a small nod and left.

Alex caught a glimpse of Graff right before he closed the door. The man's perpetually startled expression looked even more startled, probably at Alex's ease with Yassen's unspoken orders. Yassen had wanted to make a point. It seemed to have worked as far as Alex could tell.

He sort of expected to find Guérin outside but with as busy as she had looked it, was no surprise she wasn't there. Graff's assistant was still busy with his papers as well and didn't even look up at Alex's appearance. Someone else was there, though. Someone new. Mrs Graff's personal assistant – and very obvious bodyguard – was waiting outside the office. He looked a little awkward in the middle of the room but snapped out of it when he saw Alex.

"Mrs Graff would like to see you."

It wasn't a request but Alex followed readily, anyway. She was as much the client as her husband was. Possibly even more. Alex smelled a definite set-up, and for once it wasn't aimed at him.

It was awfully convenient that the man was right outside when Yassen suggested that Alex would make for a good bodyguard.

He would have wondered about the need for permanent bodyguards on a private, isolated island, but with the sort of attention they drew, Alex couldn't blame them. They had the money for it.

Mrs Graff met Alex by the edge of the pool; a large, intricately designed thing that wouldn't look out of place in an expensive resort. The side of the pool by the main building was covered by a broad awning and the rain fell steadily on the solid fabric above them. The air smelled fresh, the weather was very different from the Middle East but definitely not unbearable, and the sound of the rain was constant and soothing. In light clothes like hers, even the humidity was probably pleasant. Alex would have settled outside, too, if he'd had the choice. There were chairs and tables but no pool toys. Probably because their two kids were still away at boarding school.

She didn't even look forty, much less forty-seven. She lounged in a cushioned chair under the awning but got up when her bodyguard approached with Alex in tow. The photos in her file had been of someone classically beautiful; bright blue eyes and naturally blonde hair – or a very, very good dye job. Up close it became even more obvious that she readily played up the image of a harmless trophy wife, more arm-candy than equal partner. If there had been plastic surgery involved, it had been incredibly skilled and left no scars. Alex could imagine it would be very easy for someone to forget just how intelligent she was. She had left her magazine on the chair – not the glossy, colourful thing Alex might have expected, but a medical journal. A small reminder of her actual background.

Up close, something about her also put him on edge in a way that her husband hadn't managed. That instinct that told him he was in the presence of someone dangerous. Not the woman herself, but the influence she wielded and the intelligence that wasn't tempered by a shred of morals.

Samantha Graff was a predator.

Alex slipped easily into a more appropriate mindset, listening to his instincts all the while. When he reached her, he shifted slightly and stood at ease. She was the real power behind the operation. The ruthless one. If he treated her like just a minor annoyance or the trophy wife she pretended to be, Alex knew the whole assignment could be wrecked before it had even started. He had to make a good first impression. To do that, he would treat her like the legitimate threat she was and hope she took that the right way.

"Alexander John Rider," she greeted. Even her voice was pleasant.

"Ma'am." Alex didn't doubt she had read his file thoroughly. His and Yassen's both, though there was surprisingly little on record for Yassen Gregorovich.

"Samantha in public," Mrs Graff corrected. "'Doctor' gets confusing when my husband is around as well, and 'Ma'am' or 'Mrs' makes me sound dreadfully old. I have an image to keep up, you understand."

Alex did. Not the image of youth that some would assume based on that, but the image as nothing more than the wife. The harmless half of the marriage. Alex understood perfectly. He wondered if her bodyguard was considered 'in public' and decided to err on the side of caution.

"Yes, Samantha," he agreed easily. By the sharp edge to her smile, she knew just how well he got the point.

"Excellent. Alex, then," she agreed, not a first name used for familiarity but extending the same courtesy he showed her. The shared understanding of two people used to being underestimated and dismissed and who had turned it into an asset. _Alex_ wasn't a genuine threat, not the way _Mr Rider_ would be. _Alex_ was Yassen Gregorovich's student and shadow, but never the same danger an adult would be.

"My husband is a visionary but he is not a practical man. He wasn't sure of the wisdom of hiring a teenager. Mr Gregorovich, certainly, but he didn't understand the value of child operative," she continued. "But your employers most certainly do. They charged a significant amount for Mr Gregorovich's time, which was little surprise, but you … you were startlingly expensive, too. They value your age."

They did, and Alex wasn't surprised to hear it. His age wouldn't be an asset for that much longer. He was already the average height of an adult British male and likely to grow taller. He still hadn't filled out the way a grown-up would, but that would come soon enough. He wasn't able to pass for an innocent schoolboy anymore, and while he would still be a teenager for some years to come, he would look a lot more like the threat he was in another year or so. His age was an asset, and SCORPIA charged exceedingly well for it. Any time he spent on this assignment was time he would not be able to spend on another SCORPIA operation.

Samantha Graff made a small gesture at her bodyguard. The man hesitated for a moment, then moved back to the house again, out of hearing range. He didn't look too happy to leave his charge alone within reach of a visible armed SCORPIA operative, even one hired for security. Alex didn't blame him.

"Our previous security company was criminally incompetent but they did make a few decent hiring decisions. He's a darling man but a little innocent. Still very new to this game," she murmured. "He will learn. I have seen your file. You are a trained assassin?"

It wasn't a real question, not when she had access to his file, but she expected a response and so he gave her one. "Malagosto graduate, ma'am." If she had read his file, she would know what that covered, too.

She looked pleased with the response, probably by the confirmation and his respectful address both. "A trained bodyguard as well, I noticed."

Definitely a set-up of some sort. Everything was just a little too convenient.

"It was a pretty brief course, just a couple of days," Alex pointed out, "but yes, ma'am."

"And every bit as efficient and professional as an adult operative," she finished. Something in her eyes sharpened. Turned cold and calculating. "SCORPIA's operatives have an exceptional reputation for a reason. Oh, you will be a delight to work with, Alex."

Funny enough, Alex wasn't at all sure the feeling would be mutual.

* * *

Alex ran into the youngest Graff's main bodyguard on accident on the way out. He recognised the man from the files, another one of the few people hired by the previous company that the Graffs had kept. The daughter's security people had been dismissed with the rest. According to the files, the man had been working another assignment over late winter and spring but had returned about a week before the _Fer de Lance's_ arrival. Curiously, it seemed that none of the few remaining security staff wanted SCORPIA to have unrestricted access to the island without someone to keep an eye on them.

The man did a double take at the sight of him and gave Alex a once-over. "Christ, kid," he said. "How old are you?"

Alex gave him a flat look in return. The man was impolite, but at least he hadn't been mocking or dismissive. Alex could rein in his initial, less-than-polite response for that.

"Fifteen."

"And one of SCORPIA's?" the man asked and continued without waiting for an answer. "Christ."

"Not really, but I'd be delighted to take a message."

That got a startled laughter. "That was a bit rude, wasn't it? Sorry." He held out his hand. "Nate. Well, technically Nathan. Johann's bodyguard, security, babysitter, whatever you want to call it. I'm guessing you're Alexander Rider, then."

Alex took it. "Alex is fine. Part of security for the next month or so at least. General problem solver, too, I guess."

He could almost see Nate try to make the latter part of that job description match with SCORPIA's general reputation. "Problem solver?"

Alex shrugged. "Well, we get paid to make problems go away."

That was essentially what SCORPIA got paid so well for, Alex had found. It didn't matter if it was a single assassination or a large-scale operation. SCORPIA got paid to remove those pesky little problems someone with enough money and connections might want to pay handsomely to see removed permanently.

Nathan nodded slowly. "Very convenient. You're the one Gregorovich trained, then. Not too many SCORPIA employees your age around."

"I am," Alex agreed. "Malagosto put the finishing touches to things, but Yassen was responsible for most of my training."

Nathan looked a little sympathetic but didn't comment on it. Alex supposed Yassen's reputation could do that. His training hadn't been nearly as brutal as most people seemed to believe it had been, but no one seemed interested in his objections.

"I don't know if you've been given the tour yet, but there's an outdoor gym by the beach that's pretty good for workouts. The indoor staff gym is pretty much just two treadmills and some weights. I don't bother with it. The outdoor one is covered but if you hit it in the morning, you'll usually avoid the rain completely."

Something to keep in mind. Worth a look, anyway. Alex nodded. "I'll pass it on. Thank you."

Nathan nodded back and vanished around the corner, gone to do … whatever he had been on his way to. Probably trying to find a way to keep an eye on Yassen without being too obvious about it. That was what Alex would have done in his place.

The was a bundle of umbrellas in a huge stand by the door. Alex grabbed one on the way out. It still rained and there was no sign it was about to let up any time soon. According to the forecast it would continue for another hour.

Alex walked a little slower back to the _Fer de Lance_ than he normally would. All on his own, in the middle of a tropical island, and under the shelter of a huge umbrella, Alex found he actually enjoyed himself. It was easy to forget the assignment and the people and the research facility beneath his feet. There and then his world had narrowed down to the sound of rain and the puddles on the path and the scent of plants and soil and water.

At least his boots were waterproof. Alex followed the curve of the meandering pathway, glanced around to make sure he was alone, and then quite deliberately made a small jump into a puddle, followed by another.

He wiggled his toes. Rocked back and forth in the puddle and watched the waves and the small circles where raindrops hit the water.

Then he continued down the path to the _Fer de Lance_ in a much better mood.

* * *

Yassen met him by the yacht. Only once safely inside the main cabin, surrounded by notes and sketches, did the man speak.

"Your impression of Samantha Graff?"

Alex had expected the question and answered immediately. "Dangerous. She plays the trophy wife but that's just a cover."

Yassen nodded slightly. "Graff pays the bill but she arranged for SCORPIA to be hired for this job in the first place. Graff is in charge in name only. Consider her the de facto client. You've been assigned to her, effective immediately. If she gives you an order, you will obey according to your own good judgement, up to and including her husband's assassination. Notify me of the more important ones, but follow her orders as the client."

Yassen wouldn't have brought it up if that wasn't a real possibility. Alex wondered about the sort of person who would order their spouse killed but didn't voice it out loud. Just nodded.

"... All right," he agreed. The words had just confirmed what he already suspected. She was the power behind the man. If anything happened, he would be the fall guy, too. She would find a way out of it, Alex was sure. Pretty and a little vapid, focused mainly on her comfortable life and raising their two children, she couldn't possibly have known what her husband was involved with. Definitely a set-up.

There was one other thing he noticed, though.

"The files didn't mention it but you knew already," Alex said and continued when a few more pieces fell into place. "You wanted to see what I thought of her. You wanted me to work it out on my own."

"You won't always have such detailed intel to work with," Yassen replied. "It's less than desirable but there will be occasions when you will need to go in with very little in terms of reliable information. I won't always be there to help you. You will need to learn to rely on your own impressions. You will need to build up the proper instincts and learn to trust them implicitly."

Because Yassen would retire one day. Yassen might get killed. Sooner or later, for whatever reason, SCORPIA would expect Alex to stand on his own with no support at all. Alex's vague plans of working his way up the hierarchy to take the organisation down from the inside could still be a long way from fruition by then.

Alex didn't answer. Just nodded and accepted it.

His training wasn't over just because he had graduated. Yassen still had a lot of lessons he wanted to pass on. A decade and a half of experience in a line of work where the average lifespan was frequently counted in single years.

Alex would avoid a lot of the normal pitfalls of the job just by having Yassen right there with him. Yassen would let him make mistakes but nothing that would get him killed. Nothing that would cost him SCORPIA's favour.

For the most part Alex knew he didn't appreciate his situation the way he should. The fact that for all of the downsides, all of the nightmares and the flashbacks and the fact that he had become a murderer at the age of fifteen, he had also been given a chance that some people would kill for. And sometimes, for just a few moments, he realised the enormity of what Yassen had done. The gift he had been given when one of the best assassins in the world had put aside his work for five months to train a child to survive to the best of his ability.

Alex Rider didn't remember his parents. His godfather was apparently a murdering, treacherous SCORPIA mole. Ian Rider, in retrospect, had been something between a frequently absent caretaker, an instructor, and occasionally the awesome uncle he should have been, when Alex had done particularly well at something. Jack was wonderful and amazing and he owed her everything, but she was more sister than anything, and the less said about Tom's parents, the better.

Alex Rider wasn't sure what having a father felt like. But sometimes, deep down where no one else would know, he thought that maybe Yassen did a pretty decent job in his own way.

* * *

Next: Alex and Yassen get company. Alex is quite all right with that.


	25. Foundations

A/N: As always, thank you for reading and for your reviews! :)

* * *

Sagitta and the guards arrived in the late morning three days later. While Marcus reported to Yassen, Adams wandered over to Alex with a bag slung over his shoulder.

"You take us to the nicest places, boss."

Alex had noticed they were a little more casual when Yassen wasn't around, not that he minded at all. Maybe they had picked up on that. He wondered if they felt as awkward calling him 'sir' as he did being called that.

"Complete with a supervillain wannabe," Alex agreed. "If we're really lucky, there'll be a death trap with some killer animal or another around."

He hadn't found one yet but he hadn't ruled out the possibility. Samantha Graff seemed like that sort of person.

"So drop a hand grenade in the pool before we go swimming. Gotcha, sir."

"And be careful around his wife," Alex added. "Tell the others, too. Graff is footing the bill, but she's the one pulling the strings. Consider her the real boss."

"The smoking hot arm candy?"

Objectively Alex knew she was a beautiful woman, but with every instinct warning him that she was a threat, it wasn't exactly something that was high on his list of things to notice, and that wasn't even mentioning the fact that she was a client.

"Yeah, that would be her," Alex said dryly. "We're also pretty sure she's the one who arranged for her brother- and sister-in-law's unfortunate deaths along with two nieces and a nephew for collateral damage, so, you know ..."

" … How charming," Adams said, just as dryly. "I'll pass on the warning, sir."

By the three helicopters, the last of the supplies were being unloaded. Two were only chartered for the day but the third would remain on the island. The pilot was one of SCORPIA's and there were several others around who were qualified to pilot it as well, Yassen being one of them.

Alex was surprised at just how nice it felt to have company again. The crew of the _Fer de Lance_ was nice enough but none of them were really social. The deckhands kept to themselves and took care of the yacht. The captain and first officer were slightly more social, at least the first officer, but even they kept mainly to their own company. Alex didn't know the guards but he knew Sagitta. He liked them and trusted them about as much as he would ever be able to trust anyone in SCORPIA's employ.

Yassen obviously agreed to some degree. At the very least he agreed that they were competent, dependable people. He wouldn't have picked them for the assignment otherwise. He wouldn't have picked them just because Alex liked them. That was just a bonus.

Alex wandered over with Adams to help with the last of it. Half an hour later, only the one helicopter remained. The supplies had been removed, the helicopter secured. The rest of Sagitta had greeted Alex with the same casualness as Adams had, though they had turned a lot more formal and respectful when Yassen appeared.

High above, the clouds had turned dark. Alex had heard the first rumble of thunder somewhere in the distance shortly before the two helicopter took off. Now lightning had appeared as well, closing in on the island fast. It was early. Usually it waited until afternoon.

Alex had grown used to it already. It had rained on the day they arrived and while the second had stayed dry, this was the second day of thunderstorms in a row. The forecast promised more of the same. Clouds, rain, thunder in the afternoon, but mostly only for an hour or two. A bit of sun occasionally for variety. Warm and humid, too, but the casual uniform was surprisingly comfortable. It wasn't a place Alex would have picked for vacation, not that time of year, but it could have been much worse.

Alex watched from under an elegant awning as the first rain hit and swiftly went from scattered drops to the heavy curtain of rain that followed with the thunderstorms. Somewhere above them lightning flashed and the loud roar of thunder followed.

Marcus joined him. For a while they remained there, watching the drenched world beyond the compound. Alex could make out the shape of the _Fer de Lance_ along the pier but the details had vanished in the rain. Further past that, the horizon had vanished entirely, and the sky and sea had simply become one single, grey wall.

"Different from the Sandbox, at least," Marcus eventually noted. "Hell of a lot less dust."

Alex laughed. "I think that's the understatement of the decade. We picked the wrong time of year for a tropical vacation."

"Just a bit," Marcus conceded. Thunder rumbled again. The rain kept falling, heavy and relentless. "Will you go by Orion for the mission?"

Yassen and Alex had discussed that already. It hadn't taken long to reach a conclusion.

"Not much of a point," Alex replied. "I'm Cossack's apprentice and the only current teenage SCORPIA operative. We're not trying to hide. My age alone will be plenty for several of the people that'll come visit for the show and tell to identify me. Everyone on the island already knows me by name by now."

Marcus nodded. "Alex Rider, then."

"Alex Rider," Alex agreed. It felt a little weird to go by his real name again but he would get used to it.

The world was grey and green and humid, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It was different from the rain back in England. Much warmer. Calmer, somehow. Strong and heavy, but with little wind to go with it. He had even grown mostly used to the humidity. He remembered that Yassen had been sent to the rainforest once with Alex's father. Alex wondered how long it would take SCORPIA to do the same for him. Maybe this was just a practice run.

Marcus glanced at him. "You did good in Miami."

Not 'sir', not the forced politeness of someone dealing with a potentially unstable killer or the necessary respectfulness of one of SCORPIA's lower commanders dealing with a superior – a fifteen-year-old superior, to make it all the more awkward – but genuine approval from someone Alex respected.

Alex took a breath. Nodded. "Thank you," he said quietly and meant it.

Marcus clasped his shoulder briefly. "Let's get back to work before Cossack decides we're lazy."

Wise words. Alex took one last look at the steady rain, then turned and followed Marcus inside the compound.

* * *

Even with maps and detailed blueprints, Yassen and Alex had still spent most of the three days meticulously going over the entire island. It was less island and more anthill, Alex had decided. An oversized anthill populated by humans.

The main compound was large and airy and open and consisted of a number of buildings, not all of them connected. Maintenance and staff quarters ran the full length of the compound one floor below everything else. Out of sight, out of mind. Few of the connections below ground matched the ones above, and there were a lot more of them, too. The research facility was one floor beneath that and somewhat smaller. A number of the rooms could be closed off in case of emergencies but for the most part the place was one solid block of space. Emergency exits could be found on both levels as well, though only two for the lab and both of them were heavily protected against outside interference.

All in all, Alex got the impression that the place been designed by a drunk architect with a secret love for rat mazes.

He was sure it was very artistic. It was also a headache in security terms.

The people that worked in the facility, the researchers and scientists and the rest of the staff, at least seemed to be cautious people. Alex doubted they had much in the way of morals or common sense, having signed up for something like that, but who knew. Maybe he would be surprised. It probably paid pretty well. Frankly, it wasn't like Alex was in much of a position to judge.

For the most part they ignored Yassen and Alex and focused on their job. They looked a little unhappy about a teenager around sensitive equipment but that was all. There was no gossip or attempts to get information. There wasn't even a greeting for the most part. They had probably all learned that curiosity was a hazard to their health. The rest of the staff was much the same. No questions. No curiosity. It was a little creepy and Alex couldn't help but wonder if it had been the same in Sayle's factory.

The maps and blueprints had a lot of additional notes and sketches on the side now but even then Sagitta and the guards would have to learn the place from scratch, too.

They had a little over four weeks to get security set up and become used enough to the place to handle anything that might come their way. Four weeks before half a dozen people and their retinues, representing more than a dozen different prospective customers, would descend on the island for forty-eight hours to be given the sales pitch and demonstrations.

The new arrivals would be given the day to settle in. There were a lot of supplies to set up and sort through, and it had been a long trip even for those who were used to it. Come dawn, it would be back to schedule.

Alex had been cleared for active duty the day after they left Barbados. There was an outdoor sort of gym under a large canopy on one side of the island, the one Alex had been directed to by one of Graff's own people. Yassen made a point of using it for their daily workout. Workout and training. Alex knew it wasn't an coincidence that Yassen had chosen a highly visible place for it.

No one on the island really knew what Alex could do, and Yassen clearly had plans to change that. Even Sagitta had never seen them train together. There had been no time in Miami, and Alex had been injured in Riyadh.

The first morning after Sagitta arrived, Yassen and Alex did their initial workout with them. The team all had military background and Alex suspected Yassen wanted to get a good idea of their general fitness level.

The run and the rest of the workout reminded Alex of his months in Russia. It also meant that he kept up with the team without a problem, and he found that he liked the company.

When Sagitta moved on to stretches, Yassen moved past the outdoor gym to an open area. Well aware of what was coming, Alex followed along.

"Armed or unarmed?" Yassen asked.

"You'll let me choose?" Alex was a little suspicious.

There was a sharp glint in Yassen's eyes, gone again so fast Alex almost thought he had imagined it. Yassen's eyes flickered to Sagitta. Alex's followed suit. The team had slowed down their stretches. Several had stopped to watch the two of them instead.

"This once," Yassen responded, and Alex understood.

Put on a good show. Make their first impression of his close combat skills something that stuck with them. Alex considered the question. Unarmed was safer, especially when he was out of practice. Weapons – probably knives, though who knew with Yassen – was more impressive, but there was still the fact that it had been a long time since he had last been able to train properly with Yassen. Before he got injured. Before he went undercover. Before Miami.

Whatever he chose, he was sure Yassen would choose the other option for him tomorrow.

"... Unarmed," Alex decided. His pulse had already picked up, a surge of anticipation and restless energy, and he was surprised at just how _much_ he had missed it.

The glint was back in Yassen's eyes, the same sharp anticipation.

"Unarmed," he agree and struck, as fast and vicious as a fer-de-lance.

Alex laughed and threw himself into their spar with unrestrained delight.

* * *

An hour later, Alex was bruised and sore and entirely too happy about it. It had been a long time since he had last had a proper training session like that, and he had genuinely missed it. The speed and the dance of strike, evade, attack; the adrenaline and the sheer _wonder_ the rare times when he was able to keep up with Yassen for a few seconds, matching him move for move. He had grown restless those weeks when he had been limited to Dr Javadi's approved exercises, and it wasn't until that build-up of mad, restless energy was finally gone that he realised how much of a strain it had been. Yassen had started him up slow to avoid new injuries. This had been the first day back to full intensity.

Sagitta had settled in the outdoor gym and just watched, completely unapologetic about it. Several of the guards who had passed by had done the same.

Alex hadn't won, of course, but he had managed to get in a few good hits and he was happy with that. Improvement in tiny bits, sure, but improvement nonetheless.

They went through their stretches and parted ways, Yassen to go discuss something with the man in charge of the guards and Alex to prepare to give a tour of the island to Sagitta.

Marcus threw him a bottle of water. "Not bad."

Alex caught it easily. "I still get my ass kicked but a little less resounding every time. I can live with that."

There were clouds above them but only a light cover and not the heavy grey of rain. Alex took the time to enjoy the cool water and the temperate morning. He continued with his stretches, felt every sore muscle and knew they would feel even worse come tomorrow. The best kind of sore, though. The kind that told him he had improved just a little bit from the last time Yassen systematically kicked his ass in the guise of training.

"Ribs?"

"Not a twinge. Cleared for active duty and everything."

Marcus nodded. Alex got the impression there was something else he wanted to say and so stayed patiently silent.

"First time with this sort of operation?" Marcus eventually asked.

Alex shrugged. "Security? Yeah." It wasn't like it was dangerous information. "I've been involved in that sort of thing before, but that was on the other side of things."

"The agent infiltrating the place." It wasn't really a question. Something in Marcus' voice sounded off. Just slightly. It clicked a moment later.

Worried. Marcus was worried. Sagitta was a relatively young team and had never been involved in larger operations before Alex had brought them to Miami. They were on just as wobbly ground now as Alex was. They knew what was at stake. The risks that came with the larger pay. None of Marcus' people had been in the middle of something that important before, and for all of his indifferent approach to most others, Marcus cared about his small, hand-picked team.

Alex hesitated. Wondered how much he should say. "Cossack is used to it. SCORPIA has used him for this sort of job before. He was part of security the first time I got involved." That, too, was reasonably safe information.

Marcus let out a slow breath. "I'm surprised you survived."

In retrospect, so was Alex. "He could have taken the shot several times. He chose to let me live." Alex hesitated again. "He's dealt with intelligence agencies before. SCORPIA assigned him to this job for a reason. It's too valuable to leave in the hands of someone else."

"And they assigned you with him." A heartbeat. "Some operatives have favoured combat teams. Cossack is known to work alone, but I get the impression we've become yours."

Alex shrugged a little awkwardly. Felt a strange urge to apologise for getting them tangled up in everything. He knew most of the teams would probably appreciate the higher pay from an operation like that, but it was still risky business.

"I trained with an SAS team for a little while. They hated me. I was just a kid sent to get them binned. You seemed like someone who might give me a chance. It worked all right in Miami and Riyadh. When Yassen needed a team for this, you were the obvious choice."

Chosen for his sake more than anything, Alex suspected. Baikal hadn't met Yassen's expectations but Azov and Danube had done well, just as well as Sagitta had. But Alex knew and trusted Sagitta and so Yassen had chosen them for the job.

Another slow breath. "It's a little nerve-racking," Marcus admitted.

"Just a little," Alex agreed. A little easier than Singapore now that he had more experience, and a lot easier than Nice, but it was still unsettling, and the adrenaline and anxiety was never more than one wrong move away.

He didn't try to tell Marcus that it would be the operatives in charge – himself and Yassen – that would pay for any mistakes, because they both knew perfectly well that the punishment tended to extend to subordinates who had performed particularly bad as well. He didn't try to claim they had it under control, because while Yassen might have a lot of experience, that many unpleasant people in the same small area was a recipe for disaster.

He wasn't going to apologise, either. The brutal truth was that they were SCORPIA's, just like Alex was. This was their job and they got paid well for it. And at least, some small part of Alex's mind pointed out, they had ended up on an assignment with a boss that cared. Yassen didn't, but Alex did and that gave them a bit of additional protection.

"At least Graff probably won't try to use the drug on any of you," Alex offered instead. "SCORPIA was pretty clear on the fact that we're here for security. Graff hired our skills, he didn't hire guinea pigs. It's even in the contract."

"Oh, that's going to make it much easier to sleep tonight," Marcus said dryly. "Thank you."

Alex smiled angelically. "You're welcome." If his sleep was going to get ruined, he would share the misery. Plus, it would keep them on their toes. SCORPIA was reasonably sure the drug had already been used on several of the staff, and Marcus was smart enough to pick up on those implications. SCORPIA would not have made their own people's safety a point of the contract otherwise.

Marcus shook his head. Muttered something that sounded like 'teenagers' before he raised his voice a little. "Go change, sir. I'll get mine to do the same. We've got sightseeing to do."

Sightseeing. That was a nice way to put it. Alex shook his head and followed the suggestion, though. He felt nasty and sweaty and desperately needed a shower. The rest of the world could wait until later.

* * *

"What is your opinion on my husband's guest list?" Samantha Graff asked the following day when Alex found himself in her company again.

"... It's an influential group, ma'am," Alex hedged. He doubted the word 'clusterfuck' would go over that well with her.

Her smile was sharp. "So polite. I'm well aware they're dangerous people. Dangerous people with access to a staggering amount of wealth and power between them."

It was never enough, Alex had started to realise. It was in the human nature to want more. The Graffs were rich, very rich. They still wanted more. Samantha Graff liked money and power for the sake of it. Her husband's tastes ran more along the lines of revenge and acknowledgement of his genius.

Alex wondered if he should say anything. Decided that if nothing else, that was why they had hired SCORPIA.

"I'd feel a lot better if your children weren't on the island for those three days, ma'am," Alex said bluntly. "We can easily put them in a luxury resort somewhere for the duration of it along with enough security to make them untouchable. They'll be a target here."

"That's why I hired competent people this time. To prevent any unfortunate incidents."

"With that sort of people, things can still happen." Alex took a breath. "They'll be targets, ma'am. A lot better leverage against your husband than anything else in this place if it came to that."

"I have every faith it won't." Part confidence, part threat. Alex nodded, and Samantha continued. "Hanna is old enough that she needs to understand the realities of life. Wealth comes with a number of complications."

That sounded suspiciously like she planned to _introduce_ her daughter to some of those people.

"She's sixteen, ma'am," Alex felt compelled to point out. He didn't know the girl, didn't doubt she was probably someone like Fiona Friend, but he would do what he could to keep another kid from getting tangled up in that kind of world.

"Old enough," Samantha repeated. "At what age did you start your training?"

"Officially at fourteen." Alex's expression tightened. "Unofficially, I've been trained since I was old enough to walk. Ma'am."

"Old enough." Her voice was utterly unyielding. "She will have to learn. The sooner, the better. Dismissed, Alex."

A heartbeat. Another. Then Alex gave a curt nod, because there was nothing else he could do. "Yes, ma'am."

She was the client. He wasn't paid to have an opinion. Just to do his job.

* * *

"Mrs Graff wants to introduce her daughter to the potential clients, to teach her about the facts of life."

Yassen paused. Looked up from the blueprints he was working on to look at Alex instead. "She is a little young for it, perhaps, but if she is mature enough ..." He shrugged. "She and her brother will inherit a number of shady connections along with their parents' fortune. It is perhaps better she learns the rules of that world at a young age. It will increase her chances of survival."

 _No_ , Alex disagreed vehemently in the privacy of his own mind, _that's not better_ , but he knew perfectly well that an appeal to something as quaint as morals would get him nowhere. He tried another approach instead.

"And when Mrs Graff insists on introducing her to you?"

A slight shrug was Yassen's response. "A client is a client. She would not be the youngest client SCORPIA has done business with."

"She's _sixteen._ "

"And you are fifteen," Yassen replied calmly. "Necessity sometimes demands distasteful choices."

 _Distasteful choices._ Was that was they called it these days? Alex didn't continue the argument but the bitter taste in his mouth remained.

* * *

Most of Alex's interactions were with Mrs Graff. Most, but far from all.

Samantha Graff was a practical woman and handled the day-to-day stuff on the island. She was the one who went over the finer details of the previous two security companies with them. She had hired most of the non-security staff and knew them well. She handled most of the finances.

Iohannes Graff, like Dr Three, didn't consider his work a chore but more a delightful hobby that happened to pay him exceedingly well. As a result, he spent most of his time in the underground lab, working with his employees on the drug or on any new ideas that appeared.

Neither of the two were ever alone. Alex was usually with Samantha. Iohannes Graff got a rotating schedule, usually one of guards. Yassen made a point of meeting with the man daily.

Alex became a mix of bodyguard, security, and very expensive babysitter.

The Graffs had dinner at seven. Iohannes Graff frequently forgot, apparently often enough that his wife was less annoyed and more resigned.

"Alex, would you fetch my wayward husband?" she asked the first evening it happened. "He tends to intimidate the staff and send them right back."

Alex didn't even need to ask where he might be hiding. Lab security was already programmed to accept him and the doors opened without a sound. It still felt a little weird, the thought that he wasn't there to infiltrate the place and that he had every right to be there. The lab was mostly quiet, the staff retired for the night.

… Well, most of them. Alex followed the sound of animated voices to Graff's work office.

Graff and his lead researcher were busy scribbling notes on a whiteboard, speaking in half-sentences in a mix of English and German. Despite being fluent in both languages, Alex only understood about a third of the words.

Alex stared at them for a second. Turn to look at Graff's security for the day. The guard – Sebastian – shrugged, a little helpless but mostly resigned.

Alex pointedly cleared his throat. "Mr Graff."

No reaction. Alex sighed. Tried again, this time in German. " _Mr Graff!"_

The man stopped mid-sentence. Turned and stared. " _Yes?_ "

" _Your wife is expecting your presence for dinner."_

Graff looked torn. His fingers twitched, clearly wanting to continue with his notes. _"We're in the middle of -"_

Alex's flat look got the point across better than words could have. The man sighed and put aside the marker and turned to his companion. "We'll continue this tomorrow," he said, switching back to English.

"Better to sleep on it, anyway." The other man sounded consoling.

Iohannes Graff was twenty minutes later for dinner that evening. As Alex would find out in what he would name his babysitting duties, that was about average for the man.

* * *

Sagitta and the guards became used to the island and the people on it. The staff became used to them in turn. It was a bit of an uneasy truce but it got the job done. No one ever got used to Yassen, and Alex … well, that was just a little awkward all around. Sagitta knew him already, and the guards adjusted fast and saw Alex less as a teenager and more like the operative he was, but the Graffs' own staff and employees …

Alex was very young and though he was getting close to his adult height, his age was still obvious. Yassen had made sure people understood that Alex wasn't to be seen as a kid but like the trained SCORPIA operative he was, and that didn't make things any less awkward. Samantha Graff seemed to be the only person who wasn't at least a little uneasy around the child assassin, even if just occasionally. If anything, she was delighted.

Yassen and Adams along with several of the guards would spend the better part of two weeks setting up things to keep any and all surveillance blocked. Even with state of the art equipment, it was no easy thing to do for an entire island. There were a number of holes in security that needed handled, too. Some were a result of carelessness or incompetence. Some Alex suspected had been a deliberate result of compromised security staff, possibly by overly curious intelligence agencies.

The reasons didn't matter much to Yassen. He simply went about bringing security up to acceptable standards. Lax behaviour in the Graffs' employees got rectified – one talk from Yassen full of subtle threats of deeply unpleasant consequences got the point across beautifully – and every single security system got thoroughly checked and replaced as needed. They had brought a lot of dubiously-legal things on the _Fer de Lance_ and made use of that now. The emergency exits from the underground lab got upgraded with the Graffs' blessings. An alarm should have gone off if someone tried to open the doors from the outside but as it turned out, it had never quite worked right, probably on purpose. Yassen kept the alarm but upgraded the effects from 'nuisance' to 'lethal'. He didn't bother with warning labels, either. The staff was informed that the doors were only to be opened from the inside and in dire emergencies; if someone didn't listen then it obviously wasn't Yassen's problem. Several maintenance areas got the same sort of overhaul that required specific access permissions not to trigger something that was very likely lethal.

That sort of protections on the same island as an eleven-year-old kid made anxiety settle heavy in Alex, but there wasn't much he could do about it. The kids would be warned and security would never be more than ten feet from them at any given time. At least the emergency doors were too heavy for a preteen to open, and the number of people with access to the maintenance areas could be counted on two hands with fingers to spare, Yassen, Alex, and the adult Graffs included. That was some insurance, at least.

Over the weeks, any weaknesses in the compound would be identified and fixed, one way or the other.

Two days after Sagitta and the guards had arrived, Yassen had handed Alex the full stack of blueprints and notes.

"Find a way inside, as many as you can. Assume you have the resources of an adult agent. Use your current eduction and your knowledge of MI6's methods. Think like the spy they raised you as. You have today."

Become MI6's Alex Rider again, at least for a little while. Yassen Gregorovich was an assassin; a trained operative but an assassin first. Alex had the background of an intelligence agent. Not the training or experience of an adult one, but enough to give him a different perspective than Yassen. He wasn't even surprised Yassen would use his skills for that.

Armed with a ton of papers, a notebook, and a mental list of every last one of Smithers' gadgets he had used or even heard mentioned, Alex had set to work.

Fourteen long hours later, Alex had delivered a mostly-full notebook to Yassen along with notes for three ways to get past the current security, another two less certain and more risky ones, and a ton of notes on how he reached his conclusions.

Yassen would repeat the exercise twice more; a week into their work on security and one last time when everything was settled. The third time, Alex spent fifteen hours on it before he admitted defeat. There might still be a way in that didn't require inside help. If there was, Alex hadn't found it.

As security got ever tighter, Alex felt his own unease about the situation ease up a little in turn. At least when it came to outside interference. He still didn't feel comfortable with their job at all. He didn't see Iohannes Graff much at all, but prolonged exposure to Samantha Graff really just hammered home how dangerous she was.

Heavy security helped him sleep a little easier, though the guards helped, too. Alex mostly had his own things to do, but he tried to get to know as many of them as he could, and they all seemed like competent people. Hand-picked by Yassen, anything else would have been a surprise.

The man in charge of the SCORPIA guards was named either Ivan or John, and depending on his mood he spoke English either heavily accented with Russian or every bit as crisp and clean as Alex's English teacher at Brookland. His Russian sounded perfectly native to Alex as well.

Alex still hadn't figured out which one of the two identities was the real one – if either of them were. He didn't ask Yassen. That would have felt like cheating. Alex strongly suspected he would go through the entire assignment and still have no idea.

Ivan – John – was a gruff man, probably in his late forties, and with short-cropped, steel-grey hair. If he was bothered by the heat and humidity, it didn't show. He was also a deeply practical man and clearly used to the job. He had enough experience with both security and operatives to not be afraid to ask questions and add comments and suggestions when needed.

The first time Alex had seen the two of them spend an entire afternoon going through plans and blueprints, adding sketches and notes as needed in brief words and cut-off sentences, he had looked at Yassen afterwards.

"Have you worked with him before?" They seemed used to each other, almost able to predict each other's words.

Yassen shook his head. "No. Genuine competence is easy to work with. We have both worked this sort of assignment before. He understands the weaknesses in security just as well as I do."

Maybe it was just that simple. Years and years of experience. Ivan, as he went by at the moment, had been SCORPIA's for two decades. He had to have a lot of experience, all the more so to be put in charge of the guards for an operation like this.

Alex hoped that was the case, anyway. With an entire island to secure and time ticking down day by day, they would need all the experience they could get.

* * *

Next: Alex gets company of the teenage kind.


	26. The Facts of Life

A/N: This fic now has a fanmix by the fantastic Galimaufry! Go check it out; it's awesome :D

As usual, remove the spaces because of FFNet formatting: zephirine. tumblr post/ 159474384229/ between-the-devil-and-the-deep-blue-sea

* * *

The Graff kids returned in the last days of June. School had let out for the summer. Both attended a boarding school in Europe and returned home only for the longer vacations.

Alex saw them from a distance when they arrived. Johann looked tired. Hanna mostly looked resigned. Both looked like they had spent a long time travelling.

Alex met them properly later that day. He had expected someone spoiled, surrounded by money and expensive schools and classmates that were just as wealthy. Someone like Fiona Friend. Even their names made him dread dealing with them, both very obviously named after their father, and their grandfather and great-grandfather in turn.

The two kids he met when Mrs Graff introduced them were quiet and serious and felt older than they were. It made sense when he thought about it for a little longer. Their lives went from one extreme to the other. From a strict boarding school all on their own for most of the year, with their parents half a world away, and to being stuck on a private island for a couple of months every summer with no other company but their parents, the island staff, and each other. No friends. No visitors. No trips elsewhere. Nothing that Yassen had been alerted to yet, anyway, and he was ultimately in charge of security.

The Graffs wanted them safe to the point where minor things like a social life and freedom were a secondary concern. Since Samantha Graff had personally arranged the murders of most of their family, maybe it wasn't a surprise that she was a little paranoid someone else might try the same to them.

"Darlings, this is Alex. He will be responsible for your safety for the next month. Some of your father's business associates will visit in a few weeks, so it seemed like a sensible time to get security upgraded properly."

Her eyes sharpened as they focused on Alex. "Alex, my children. The most precious things in my life."

Alex picked up on the implied threat just fine. Operatives weren't expendable on the client's whim, but accidents happened. Especially if the Graff children got harmed. "Yes, Samantha," he agreed.

Was her family considered 'in public'? Her bodyguard had been. Alex decided to play it safe and go with her given name, like he had been ordered to.

Both of the kids watched him carefully, as carefully as Alex watched them. Johann held his sister's hand. The way she stood next to him and a bit in front of him, a little protective though she tried to hide it, she reminded Alex more of a mum than a sister. He got a sudden, sharp reminder of Jack and felt his heart twist.

He supposed that made sense, too. Most of the year, they had no one but each other. A normal sixteen-year-old girl might have resented being responsible for her eleven-year-old brother, but she was just as alone in the world as he was. They had no one. Only each other. The school staff and friends, sure, but no family. No parents to turn to most of the time – physically half a world away and their father a busy man – and no close family still left alive.

Samantha Graff had pruned that particular family tree with vicious enthusiasm.

Johann glanced at his sister. Hanna frowned a little and broke the silent stare-off. "Tell me about yourself."

Alex was aware of the the image he presented, in casual uniform and heavily armed. He was not the picture of a standard bodyguard or security. In her place, he would have frowned, too.

A glance at Samantha got him the permission he needed. "They're both old enough to understand necessity," the woman replied easily. "There's no need to lie about your background."

Johann was _eleven._ Maybe Hanna was considered old enough to learn the truth about things, but Johann was eleven … and Samantha Graff was the boss. Alex nodded slightly in acknowledgement. "I'm Alex Rider. I'm fifteen years old and a trained SCORPIA operative. I'm here as part of the security arrangement. As I went through bodyguard training as part of my education, I've been assigned as your protection for the duration of the assignment."

Perfectly true but still dodging the bits that weren't entirely suitable for an eleven-year-old. SCORPIA wasn't exactly a familiar name to most.

The look Samantha gave him was slightly amused. _Well played,_ the gesture said.

Alex's answer was an almost imperceptible shrug. He would like to avoid traumatising an eleven-year-old kid. Samantha obviously didn't have the same qualms.

"Your father's choice in security company proved lacking again," she told the two of them. "We decided it was time for a different approach. Alex is a trained assassin. His orders are to keep you safe."

 _Safe by any means_ wasn't spoken out loud but heavily implied.

Johann might have been too young to understand the brutal reality behind that description but his sister obviously wasn't. Hanna's grip on her brother tightened. Her stance shifted just enough to bring him a little further behind her. Johann looked at her with a frown, opened his mouth – and shut it again at the sharp look he got in response.

Alex still wasn't sure which of their parents they took after in regards to personality, but Hanna had clearly picked up at least some of her mother's sharp mannerisms. He wondered how much she knew about what her parents were involved with. Based on everything, he got the suspicion that Samantha Graff had been a little too straightforward about some things.

"Business associates, mother?"

Hanna's words were stilted and formal. She kept her tight grip on her brother and never once looked away from Alex. He suspected she had a pretty good idea of what sort of 'business associates' they were. It was still unnerving to be treated with that kind of suspiciousness but he had accepted that it was more or less his life now. 'Assassin' was not a nice job description.

"Networking," Samantha responded easily. "A few old acquaintances and some new ones along with their own security, of course. They'll only be here for a few days. I'll introduce you to a few of them but beyond that, you'll hardly notice."

Hanna didn't look convinced. Considering the fact that her mother had arranged for an assassin as a bodyguard for them, Alex couldn't really blame her.

* * *

The day after the kids' arrival, Mrs Graff made good on her threat.

A leisurely breakfast had been arranged in the late morning sunlight in the gardens the first day the kids were back. Even Iohannes Graff, busy that he might be, had taken the entire morning out of his schedule.

… That, or possibly Guérin had done it for him on his wife's request. She might be Graff's personal assistant, but Alex had seen her deep in conversation with Samantha Graff about something or another often enough. Samantha was in charge of a lot of the practical issues, and it was easier to just go straight to the solution in the first place.

With four large, comfortable chairs around an elegant table with a white tablecloth and beautiful breakfast arrangement on display, the whole scene could have been mistaken for something from a high-end hotel. If one ignored the number of armed people standing at a respectful distance, anyway. Nathan, Johann's bodyguard for the morning shift, wasn't visibly armed, but Hanna's – a recent hire by Yassen – definitely was. As was Alex, watching the whole thing as well. There was nothing to protect anyone from at the moment, but it was his job and it gave him an idea of family dynamics.

Johann was chatty, pleased to have both of his parents for the morning. Social, energetic – everything a normal eleven-year-old should be, and different enough from Jacob Sullivan that Alex wasn't reminded of Singapore every time he saw the boy.

Hanna was a little more reserved. She answered if someone asked a question but mostly she let her brother do the talking. She ignored their bodyguards, clearly used to seeing the staff as part of the furniture, but she couldn't help the occasional wary glance at Alex.

Breakfast finished, the table was cleared with a small gesture at one of the staff. Coffee, tea, and fresh juice was brought out instead, along with an extra chair. Alex understood why a moment later when Yassen appeared with impeccable timing.

Mrs Graff made a small motion towards Nathan. The man gave Johann a smile that only looked a little forced before he pulled out the boy's chair and nodded towards the pier where the _Fer de Lance_ glowed in the sunlight.

"Have you seen the boat down there?"

Johann clearly knew he was being dismissed. "Father -"

Graff shook his head. "It's business talk. You're a little young for something that boring."

Johann's expression darkened but he got up, anyway, and focused on Nathan. "Is it bigger than father's?"

Probably as petty and vicious as he could get away with, and judging by the faint displeasure on Graff's face, right where it hurt as well. Alex decided he liked the kid.

"Why don't we go find out?" Nathan suggested with unusual diplomacy. The answer, Alex knew, was a 'yes'. Graff's own yacht, rarely used much, was currently undergoing maintenance in a marina on the mainland. He wondered how long it would take the man to replace it with something bigger now.

Johann allowed himself to be led away, not happy but clearly out of options.

A glance from Yassen to Ivan was all the man needed to radio the _Fer de Lance_ with permission to let Johann Graff on board if he wanted.

Yassen settled in the new chair. Gestured for Alex to sit where Johann had just been, right next to Hanna. Her expression was hard but when he settled down, he saw the faint tremor in her hand where she clutched her leg under the table. Hanna Graff was terrified. Her bodyguard didn't look too happy, either.

Yassen ignored all of it with practised ease.

"Hanna, this is Mr Gregorovich, a representative of SCORPIA," Mr Graff introduced them. "You have already met Alex, his second in command. Mr Gregorovich, my daughter."

A slight incline of his head was Yassen's only response.

"Mr Gregorovich," Hanna greeted. Her voice was calm and even, but the death grip on her leg tightened. Yassen could be perfectly anonymous when he wanted to be, but Yassen as he was now, in charge of security and as SCORPIA's representative, was a deadly, intimidating man.

"SCORPIA deals with all manners of problem solving," Mrs Graff took over. "Perhaps you are a little young for these things, but after the unfortunate business with your aunt and uncle -"

"They were murdered, mother." Curt, sharp words.

"- We decided it was perhaps better that you gain an understanding of the nature of the world a little younger than most," Samantha Graff carried right on without missing a beat.

The kids didn't know their mother was behind those murders. They knew it was murder, or at least Hanna strongly suspected it, but they didn't know that their mother had ordered it. Alex wondered if Iohannes Graff knew. A glance at the man revealed nothing.

"It's for your own safety," Mr Graff added.

Hanna stayed silent, lips pressed tightly together. Alone, frightened, and ganged up on by the adults that should have been protecting her. On an impulse, Alex reached over and nudged her hand under the table, out of sight from anyone.

Her hand froze for a second. Then the death grip transferred to him instead and the tremor eased a little. It wasn't much he could do, but he could offer just a little support. It spoke volumes to him that she was willing to accept that small gesture from someone she was clearly cautious of, too.

She seemed to regain a bit of equilibrium. "I've never heard of SCORPIA before."

"It's not a commonly known name but we are well-known among those in need of services such as ours."

"Assassins."

"Among others," Yassen agreed. "Security in this case as well. Mercenaries, intelligence, sabotage – we perform a variety of services, sometimes for governments as well. It is perhaps a distasteful truth to learn, but the world is a pragmatic place. Morals only last until they become an inconvenience."

The slight tremor was back. "And father hired you for security."

Yassen nodded slightly. "I am ultimately responsible for island security. Alex will act on my behalf when I'm required to act as SCORPIA's representative instead."

"For networking." She almost spat the word, as close to it as she could get away with around her parents and while still being reasonably polite. "With father's business associates."

Another nod.

Hanna's grip on Alex's hand tightened. "Mother assigned him to us."

Alex hadn't expected that response. He wondered what went through her head. She sounded like she wanted to keep him with them. Quite possibly she had just realised what kind of bodyguards they would get instead. At least Alex was around her own age and somewhat friendly.

"You will be given several competent guards for those days. I assigned Alex to your mother. She, in turn, assigned him to you. There was always an understanding that he would have other duties while those business associates are present."

Her expression tightened. "You make him sound like property."

"To SCORPIA, he is." Yassen's words were indifferent. He could have been talking about the weather, never acknowledging Alex's presence. "All operatives sign a five-year exclusive contract at the end of their training. Until Alex turns twenty, his life belongs to SCORPIA. It is not a kind world you will enter through your parents' influence, Miss Graff. The sooner you understand that, the greater your chances of survival. You will be a very wealthy young woman when you reach your majority. There are those who will target you for that. Enough money and the right connections can make those problems disappear. That is the lesson your parents wish for you to learn: everything has a price. It's merely a matter of finding the right one. Enough money can remove an inconvenient head of state. Enough money can destroy a government and see another unfairly elected. The same kind of money that would buy you a decent-size luxury yacht would also be enough to pay for the assassinations of every last person in your school that ever treated you unkindly. All it would take would be a phone call."

Alex felt Hanna's hand tremble again. He thought he understood what Yassen was doing. Not just giving Hanna a brutal taste of her parents' world but also doing for Alex what Alex himself had done in Singapore. Make him seem human to Hanna, who had the potential to be the biggest problem of the two kids. Make him seem sympathetic and just as powerless in the situation as she was. Instil enough fear in her to make her more likely to listen to sensible suggestions and enough sympathy to listen to those same suggestions from Alex.

"My aunt – my uncle and his family -"

"There are a number of organisations and freelance operatives who could have seen that done for far less than my presence here costs your parents."

Maybe that was the reason the adult Graffs had given the kids for the move from Europe. Security. Then again, the kids still attended school back there. Alex wondered how much the two of them had worked out on their own. Both of their parents were intelligent people.

Hanna's expression shifted. Became harder and more determined. "And if I wanted to find out who ordered it?"

"You would have a difficult time of it," Yassen said bluntly. "Those same organisations value the confidentiality of their clients. At the most, you would draw the unfortunate attention of a number of dangerous people."

"You said enough money could pay for everything."

"No, Miss Graff. I said everything has a price. Sometimes that price is not worth it. Is the knowledge worth your probable death?"

Hanna didn't speak for a long time. Then she took a deep breath. Nodded politely and let go of Alex's hand. She hadn't entirely perfected her control of her own emotions yet, but she was definitely getting there. Another year, maybe, and she would have it down. "Thank you, Mr Gregorovich. I'm not as familiar with that sort of business as mother and father are, and I appreciate the lesson and your patience with my questions. It was a pleasure to meet you."

Yassen nodded slightly. "Once you gain enough experience, you will find it is a business like any other. SCORPIA will be available for any issue you may need resolved."

Hanna nodded in return. Took another deep breath. Glanced at her parents. "I'm done with breakfast. May I be excused?"

The two older Graffs exchanged a look. Her father nodded.

Hanna got up and headed back towards the house, her bodyguard trailing after her. A glance from Yassen was all that was required to see Alex follow them.

She went straight to her room. Alex wasn't surprised. He paused in the doorway and waited for her to notice him. She had settled on her bed, arms wrapped around her legs and curled up against the headboard. For a moment it seemed like she planned to ignore him. Then she sighed and gestured for him to come inside. Her proper bodyguard remained outside.

"At least you didn't just walk right in," she said, a little bitter. "The last ones father hired did."

It was less room and more of a suite, complete with bathroom and two glass doors that opened up to the gardens right beyond. Everything was clean, too. Neat and organised. It didn't look like a teenage room but more like what it actually was – a place where she stayed during vacations and which the staff kept clean the rest of the year. It didn't have all that much in the way of personality.

Alex shrugged. "I wouldn't have wanted someone to do that to me, either."

Ian and Jack had been nice about respecting his privacy. SCORPIA didn't really seem to have grasped the idea that the concept even existed. His tracker alone was vivid proof of that.

Hanna stared at him for a long time, at the dark uniform that stood out like a sore spot against the lightness of the buildings and at the visible weapons he carried. He barely thought about them anymore. They had become just a part of his uniform. It was another entry on the long list of things he had adapted to because he'd had no other option.

"You can fight," she finally said. "You must be able to. Will you teach Johann the basics? To defend himself, at least?"

"Sure." He couldn't imagine anyone would really object to that, and Alex himself would feel a lot better for it, too. A little bit of additional protection. "Not you?"

Her expression turned bitter again. "It's not an appropriate pastime for a young lady of my station." It sounded like a quote from someone. Alex had a pretty good idea from where. Hanna took a deep breath. "Will you teach me how to use a gun?"

Alex thought of a sixteen-year-old girl thrown in with the sharks, surrounded on all sides and with no help from her parents, and he thought of himself at fourteen, up against grown adults and with no more assistance than a few gadgets.

"Yes," he said and didn't care if her mother might disagree if she found out; he would make damn sure Hanna already knew the basics by then. "I will."

* * *

It was early July when Yassen sat Alex down after their morning workout. "You have today off," he said without preamble.

Alex looked up, a little startled. "Why -?"

"A year ago," Yassen said, calm and even, "I gave you a choice. You have come a long way, Alex. You were in no condition to do anything for your birthday," he continued, "so this will have to do. Take one or two of our people along with you. Take the day off. Do what you want. The helicopter is available. Should Graff ask, there will be a perfectly legitimate reason to leave for the day."

Alex shuddered at the reminder of RTI. He had passed the course on his birthday but it had been a full day later before he had been awake and coherent enough to actually understand that he had turned fifteen. It wasn't like Malagosto celebrated birthdays, anyway. Alex hadn't even known the ages of most of his classmates beyond a rough year at best. Ages or real names or even nationality in some cases. Some were chatty. Some were really not.

"One small problem," Alex pointed out. "If the Americans and Russians are both interested in this place, there'll be foreign agents in Panama, and I'm wanted by a lot of twitchy people."

"You have a suitable disguise with you."

"One that I'm not supposed to tell anyone about." Brendan Chase had been very clear on that.

"At some point within the next two weeks, the Graff children will spend a day in Panama City. Cheshire will be required for security. With the amount of money this contract is worth, the risk of burning that disguise is negligible. You have the board's permission. Consider today a trial run."

Singapore and Crux's lessons felt like forever ago. Alex definitely needed the practice.

He nodded. Took a breath. "Thank you."

A day to himself. A day entirely to himself, with no duties or lessons or homework or intel to go through. Right now it sounded like heaven.

It took a good hour to get enough into character as Cheshire to pass Yassen's inspection. It felt weird and safe both, an entirely different person with all that came with it. It would be better if he got used to it again now and not on the day it actually counted.

Alex spent the day with Aranda. With Cheshire's dark hair and blue eyes, she could pass for his sister, and their features were just similar enough that the idea couldn't immediately be dismissed. Cheshire was tall for a teenage girl but Aranda was well past six feet. He had also accepted Alex's disguise without blinking. He hadn't even looked surprised.

It was dangerous for Alex Rider to be seen in public, especially in a place with foreign intelligence agents, but Cheshire was safe. With Aranda in casual clothes next to her, they were just siblings out for the day. Nothing more.

Alex took Yassen up on his offer and borrowed the helicopter. The pilot was SCORPIA as well and asked no questions, and Cheshire spent the day sightseeing in Panama City with her big brother.

"First time here?" Aranda asked when they settled down to grab some lunch.

"First time in Panama, period," Alex replied. His wig felt a little sweaty but nothing he couldn't ignore. At least Cheshire's dress was light and airy and she wore sensible sandals. Alex wiggled his toes and enjoyed the freedom from the boots that went with his uniform. "You?"

"Just a small stop on the way to Colombia," Aranda said. "It didn't leave a lot of time for sightseeing."

Unspoken was the fact that it had been SCORPIA business. Definitely no time for sightseeing, then. Alex remembered something about it from his file. Aranda had been the medic for several different teams before Marcus had lured him away. One of those assignments had put him in South America for half a year.

Most of Aranda's last team before Sagitta had been killed during an operation shortly after his transfer to Marcus' command, the file had noted as well. SCORPIA had written off the loss and charged the client an extra fee for the loss of valuable resources. Alex wondered if Aranda knew. SCORPIA didn't encourage sentimentality of any sort. He certainly wasn't going to ask.

They returned to the island well into the evening, and Alex felt more rested than he had since the weeks on the _Fer de Lance._ He hadn't realised until then just how mentally draining the assignment would be. Singapore and Miami had been stressful, but he had expected that. He'd been undercover. Here, he was just Alex Rider.

It had been a year with Yassen. A year since he had left London and Jack and Tom and MI6. It didn't feel like something to celebrate. It didn't really feel like anything to linger on, either. It was just his life now. For better or for worse.

* * *

Alex timed his first shooting lesson for Hanna for the minute Samantha Graff would be busy with other things for at least three hours. It took a couple of days, but not nearly as long as Alex had feared. Samantha and Guérin met frequently to sort out the practical matters of the weeks to come, and those meetings easily took hours. A check of the Graffs' schedules gave him the opening he would need for Hanna's lesson.

Johann's lessons were easier. The boy had apparently decided that what was going on around the island was endlessly fascinating and could be seen tagging along with anyone willing to explain what they were doing, bodyguard in tow. It was easy for Alex to get Johann involved with some basic self defence lessons in the guise of workout. No one seemed to mind and neither of his parents commented on it.

The moment he got the chance, he put Hanna Graff through the basics of guns and shooting. It was harder to explain than he had expected, his own skills being mostly instinct by now. Yassen had been a patient, meticulous instructor in Russia, though, and those were the lessons that Alex now echoed.

She didn't need to be good. She didn't even need to be decent. She just had to know how to handle a gun and shoot someone at reasonably close range with some amount of accuracy. Better aim could come later. Alex focused on getting the foundations into place, enough to make it useful even if that was the only lesson she would get until she was old enough to choose them herself.

Samantha Graff found them on the shooting range four hours later, a section of the island set aside for that sort of thing as far from the main building as it could possibly get.

Alex saw a flicker of worry in Hanna's eyes. Then she lowered the gun, put it aside with neat, careful motions, and turned around to face her mother with her head raised in silent defiance.

"Mother."

Samantha's eyes were unreadable. They lingered on her daughter's stubborn expression, drifted to the gun, then to the paper target that Hanna had managed to hit with reasonable accuracy for a first-time shooter.

Finally they settled on Alex. "A word, Alex."

"Yes, Samantha," he agreed easily and followed her.

Hanna frowned. "Mother -"

"A word, darling," her mother repeated. "That's all."

The girl still frowned but she didn't argue any further. Maybe that had been enough reassurance. More likely she knew that arguing with her mother was a lost cause.

Samantha Graff paused once they were out of hearing range. "An interesting choice of pastime."

"If she's old enough to be introduced to the likes of Yassen Gregorovich and SCORPIA, she's old enough to learn to defend herself, ma'am," Alex replied. He wasn't about to say that Hanna had asked him to. Her mother didn't need to know. "She'll be in danger just for her family name. Maybe she'll never need to use a gun, but it doesn't hurt that she knows."

"Your idea, then," Graff stated.

"Yes, ma'am." Alex's voice was perfectly even, perfectly honest.

Finally she smiled, just slightly, and there was a hint of something in her eyes. She looked satisfied, though Alex couldn't figure out why. "She has asked for self-defence lessons on behalf of Johann and herself before. You're the first bodyguard to have agreed to it, much less approach it with such seriousness. Most have considered them too young. I have always agreed, but perhaps it's time to reconsider."

Her attention lingered on her daughter for long seconds. The girl looked worried and a little unsure. Alex wondered just how often she'd had some guard or another replaced for whatever reason – incompetence, new security company, or even just for doing something Samantha Graff disagreed with.

Her attention returned to Alex. "What is your verdict, then?"

"Hanna has decent aim; it'll get the job done if the target is close enough and stationary, but she's not a natural and she's scared of the gun," Alex rattled off, the analysis second nature. Yassen had tested him often enough with questions like that. "She'll need more training to have any kind of reliable aim. Johann has been taught some basic self-defence so far. He's a kid, he's used to rough games and he's taken well to that sort of training, but he'll need regular lessons to move further than that. He's only had a few hours of the very basics and it's still mostly a game to him. Even with more training, he might not be able to escape a kidnapper if it came to that, but he'd have a lot better odds and he'd put up a good fight and maybe buy enough time for someone else to step in."

A slight nod. Alex took that as encouragement to continue. "I'd recommend getting Hanna some self-defence lessons, too. You wanted her to know the facts of life, ma'am? Well, this is it. She'll always be a target. Caution and worst case scenarios will be a good lesson to learn."

Samantha Graff was silent for long seconds before she nodded. "Something to consider, I suppose. For now, find someone to continue their training, preferably someone already in the know. You have other duties, and I think we can both agree it would perhaps be better if she was taught by someone used to self-defence and not to Malagosto's … requirements."

Someone not trained to go for head shots as the first and immediate solution. Alex couldn't exactly blame her.

"Yes, ma'am."

If it got him out of shooting lessons, he didn't even mind. He could be a decent enough instructor, he had found, but he would never be a natural. He was used to the relentless pace that Yassen had set for him. Dealing with a teenager with no prior training would take more patience than Alex had.

* * *

"You've made a good impression," Yassen remarked the next day. "Samantha Graff contacted SCORPIA to inquire about the price of your contract."

It took Alex a couple of seconds to work out what Yassen meant. The exclusive contract with SCORPIA. A sick feeling settled in his stomach. "How much it would cost to buy me, you mean."

The contract didn't put it quite in those words but five years working exclusively for SCORPIA and no right to refuse an assignment amounted to much the same thing as far as Alex was concerned. Sure, d'Arc had said that SCORPIA tried to fit the mission to the operative but that didn't change the fact that he had no choice in his assignments.

Yassen shrugged slightly but didn't deny it. "You will be pleased to know that SCORPIA has no interest in such a transaction, but that they took it as the praise it was."

Alex knew it was a compliment of sorts in their kind of world. He could have lived just fine without it.

* * *

Hunting down Iohannes Graff in his lab became a regular occurrence. Usually it was because he had missed dinner, but sometimes it was other things. Lunch, or a meeting, or something else entirely. Those times, it was easy to forget that the man was the mastermind behind a drug that could cause an untold amount of death and destruction. He looked more like a harmless professor than a mad, vengeful scientist.

The fourth time, the polite reminder didn't work. Graff looked at Alex. Then he looked thoughtfully at the computer simulation he had been working on.

"Sir, if you don't come along voluntarily, your wife instructed me to be persuasive," Alex pointed out. "And she says your computer is expendable."

Graff slumped a little. "She would," he conceded and shut it down for the evening.

The sixth time, Graff looked thoughtfully at _Alex_ instead. "... You speak German."

Alex had a nagging suspicion where that line of thought was going. "Standard German, sir. Not Swiss German, and definitely not the science sort of German. I don't understand half of what you're talking about."

"But you could learn!" Graff insisted. "If I had an assistant who could help with notes – if you were one of my guards -"

"I think you're going to have to talk to your wife about that instead, sir," Alex said dryly. "And I don't think she wants to trade."

"No," Graff sighed. "I don't think she wants to, either. Mr Gregorovich knew, I'm sure. He could have argued a lot more for your skills, you know." He sounded almost morose.

Apparently the way to approval with Iohannes Graff was a firm grasp on relevant languages and an utter unwillingness to be budged from one's duties.

"And deprive your poor wife of someone to fetch her husband?" Alex said. "He couldn't possibly do that, sir."

"... Just a part-time guard shift?"

Alex saw a vision of endless hours of incomprehensible German and a lot of scribbling of words he had absolute no clue about, stuck in an underground lab. "... No, sir. I really don't think so."

He relayed the conversation to Samantha Graff. She laughed and congratulated him on a job well done.

* * *

Next: There are some reunions Alex really could have done without.


	27. The Will of the Board

A/N: … And once more the usual warning for slightly grim (off-screen) subject matters, because SCORPIA.

I spent a while faffing about with this chapter. It grew, uh, somewhat significantly in editing, but the only place to break it up would have resulted in an awkward 6k-3k split (the latter being a bit short for a full chapter). Plus, it keeps getting longer every time I go through it again, so now I'm just posting the sucker. So you're getting the full chapter, and I'll take a full week before I post the next one. It seemed like a fair deal to me, since all the extra words cut into the time I should have spent writing further in advance :p

Also, I'm hideously far behind on PMs and review replies. Massive apologies to everyone, and I'll hopefully catch up tomorrow. I wanted to get this one posted before it grew any further, and because the more I reread it, the less I like it and the more I want to fix.

TheSilverHunt3r: Absolutely! Feel free to use it, no credit needed – I found it on a site with punny boat names in the first place :)

* * *

Two weeks before the meeting, the full files on their guests arrived. Their guests and – even more important – the various 'assistants' that would arrive with them. There wouldn't be that many, a couple for each of them on average, but it was plainly understood by everyone that 'assistant' meant highly trained bodyguard, killer, or very likely both. People potentially right up there with SCORPIA's own elite operatives, representing an uncomfortably diverse number of interests.

Even just having Yassen Gregorovich and Gheorghe Marinescu in close proximity would be enough to make a number of people twitchy, and that was without adding the fact that they represented two major, competing terrorist organisations.

Alex had done the maths out of idle curiosity after he had seen the complete list of guests and assorted assistants. Santa Catarina Island would play host to a combined bounty worth millions.

Maybe it would be worth it for someone to drop a cruise missile on the island after all.

Going through the files also brought up another, much less hypothetical problem. Hart would travel by private yacht for security reasons, but at least he only brought one so-called assistant with him. It would have been a small relief and a few people less to worry about but for one minor issue.

Alex put the thin folder in front of Yassen.

"Fox." Alex's gaze met Yassen's. "Ben Daniels. I had no idea what his real name was, but I knew him as Fox. He was in K-Unit, the SAS unit I trained with. He'll recognise me."

Yassen didn't open the file. He didn't need to, the important information already memorised. He was SCORPIA's most successful – and expensive – assassin for a reason. "According to his file, he didn't make it through SAS selection due to injury. He's here as Hart's bodyguard, under the cover of a personal assistant. He is not the only former special forces bodyguard on the list."

Alex shook his head. "I don't believe that. I know the fail rate is bad, but that unit was really good. I didn't get along that well with them, sure, but they were good soldiers."

Yassen's expression gave nothing away, good or bad. "His file stands up to even close scrutiny. He has worked as a bodyguard for seven months. He was hired by Hart as additional security for a visit in a combat zone in December and performed well enough that Hart kept him. There are no warning signs. Nothing suspicious. They have not even been back to Europe since, much less England. Hart would not risk it."

Alex took a breath. "I know. I've got nothing else to base it on. It just – feels wrong."

Yassen nodded slightly. Something in his features shifted fractionally. Alex knew that expression. Whatever test it had been, he had passed. "A British national, likely SAS, operating in foreign territory … MI6 has been known to recruit from the armed forces, and they have been remarkably thorough in their cover stories at times. I doubt he serves a foreign agency, not this soon after his time in the SAS and for an operation this important."

There could be other options, Alex knew, but Yassen was right. MI5 was domestic. That made MI6 the most likely suspect.

"If he's MI6, he might recognise you, too," Alex pointed out. "You're well known to intelligence agencies. They warned me about you before they sent me off to Cornwall. They had surveillance photos of you with Sayle."

"I represent SCORPIA, and your allegiance and connection to me is hardly a secret. We're not trying to hide our presence here. If he is indeed MI6, he will recognise a number of the people here." Yassen tilted his head slightly as he watched Alex. "You did not have an issue with Byrne, and you knew him before SCORPIA as well."

Point. He should have been just as uneasy when he had met Byrne but he hadn't been. It wasn't like every intelligence agency out there didn't know he was SCORPIA's now. Alex glanced down at the file again. What did it matter if Fox recognised him? The man couldn't afford to cause any trouble, not as part of Hart's security and with Alex as Yassen's second in command.

The touch of a hand against his chin made Alex look up again. "You are not the spy anymore, Alex," Yassen said quietly. "You are Orion and you are SCORPIA's. Assassins work best in anonymity but sometimes assignments require a different touch. It would have been a death sentence if Alex Rider became widely known. This is not the case for Orion. For SCORPIA's best operatives, sometimes that reputation is what the client pays for. Part of the reason people like us are so very expensive is the risk we run in being so visible. Our clients do not always want an anonymous assassin. They pay the fee required because they want Cossack or Nile or Orion. Graff pays for my skills and reputation. In time, others will pay the same for the privilege of having you in their arsenal for a brief while."

It went against every lesson Alex had ever learned, from Ian and MI6 and his own missions and even Malagosto. But then, he had always known the rules were different for SCORPIA's best operatives. He hadn't even wanted to tell Yassen about Fox but he hadn't had a choice. If he had stayed quiet, Yassen would have found out when Fox arrived and Alex would have been in a lot of trouble.

Joe Byrne had been one thing. He liked the man on some level. Fox … Fox was probably MI6. Alex's main memory of K-Unit was ten days straight of misery, compounded by grief and anger at his own situation. With his wonderful memories of MI6 to add to that …

Maybe Fox hadn't been nearly as bad as Wolf, but he had done nothing to help on things, either. Fox as a potential MI6 agent was a whole truckload of complicated issues all wrapped up in one unpleasant, unwanted package, and Alex would just have to deal with it.

Wolf had been a complete professional at Point Blanc. He'd been almost nice a couple of times. Alex wondered if the same would be the case with Fox. If the man really was MI6, he would see Alex as a traitor and a wanted terrorist … but then, Fox would have a cover to keep as well. Whatever he was there for, he couldn't afford to cause trouble with that many deadly people around.

Mutual avoidance, maybe. Alex would be busy with security, anyway. He had a job to do.

"So ignore Fox, because SCORPIA pays me to be Orion and highly visible security?"

"Keep an eye on him," Yassen corrected. "We will bring our concerns to Graff. If he is an MI6 agent, we will take steps to contain the threat. If he recognises you, what does it matter? You are no longer the child they would sacrifice on a whim. You are a graduate of Malagosto, an experienced operative, and my partner. Whatever he is paid to be here, whatever his qualifications might be, you surpass it in every way. Let him report back to his masters. It matters little to us."

Alex took a deep breath. Nodded and accepted the truth of Yassen's words. "All right. I can do that."

Yassen lowered his hand again. "Now, the far more important questions to ask are these: If Hart's only bodyguard is potentially compromised by MI6, is Hart himself as well? And if he is, how long have they controlled him?"

Fox had been his bodyguard for seven months. No one had known about Graff's meeting that far in advance, not even Graff himself, which meant that it hadn't been intended specifically to target them. If Fox was MI6 … how much of Hart's spider-web network of connections had been compromised? How much had been done with Hart's full knowledge? And how much of it was SCORPIA about to get tangled up in?

 _Oh_ , Alex thought, the only reaction he could manage for a rattled second, and the rest of his brain scrambled along a second later. _Oh, hell._

* * *

Alex's immediate reaction to a potential MI6 agent was to wonder how they could minimise the damage. If Hart himself was possibly compromised, the best thing to do would be to retract his invitation and flat-out refuse him access to the island. If it was just Fox, it wouldn't be that hard to convince Hart to leave him on the yacht. Give him some of Sagitta for security if that was what they had to – if Fox was compromised, it was in Hart's own interest to keep important information from the man. But there was no guarantee it would just be Fox. In fact, it was looking horribly likely that if Fox was MI6, then Hart was compromised, too. Likely enough that they couldn't afford to ignore the possibility, at least. MI6 could have all kinds of material on Hart. It wouldn't be the first time they used blackmail, as Alex was living proof of.

Yassen's immediate reaction, of course, would be to decide the easiest, most convenient way to dispose of them and not have it tracked back to them or cause unwanted attention for their client. Alex knew him well enough to know that.

Iohannes Graff didn't agree with either of the options.

"He is likely deep cover MI6," Yassen said calmly.

"He will be a test, then," Graff dismissed. "The other two agents, the drug was not perfected yet. The test killed them. We will keep him and use him to prove the worth of the drug. Strong enough to turn even a trained agent. Talk to Hart and arrange it."

Alex wondered why the hell they had been hired for security if the man wasn't going to listen. "Sir, if he's an agent, Hart might be compromised, too. You need to keep him away from the island for security's sake or lock him up. It's not worth the risk"

Graff's expression hardened slightly. "Is there any evidence to back this up?"

"No, sir," Alex admitted. Not for lack of trying, either. SCORPIA's background checks had been thorough. "He went through SAS training and he was good enough that he shouldn't have been binned. I know the file claims he got injured, but it wasn't anything serious. He could easily have reapplied. MI6 has been known to recruit from the armed forces before."

"Loyalties change. You are former MI6 yourself, are you not? Their prized child spy. Do you believe Hart was any less thorough in his tests than SCORPIA was with you?"

Good point. Alex knew arguing would do nothing, but he tried, anyway.

"If Hart is compromised -"

"They wouldn't dare." Graff's voice cut through the argument and left no room to continue. "The last time someone tried to arrest him, he was released again within four hours with profound, official apologies for the mistaken identity, and the people responsible found their careers had a quite abrupt downturn. I will not risk his business, much less the insult it would be to take back his invitation. His assistant is expendable, but you will treat Hart himself with the respect he deserves."

 _None, then_ , Alex thought to himself but didn't say it out loud.

Yassen's stoic expression hadn't shifted at all through the short argument. "Intelligence agencies have ways to make people cooperate."

"He will participate. End of discussion."

Yassen nodded slightly. There was no emotion in his voice or features, none at all – annoyance, impatience, or otherwise. "And should Daniels prove compromised?"

"I want him alive and well enough to be useful."

Another slight nod. Alex wondered if Sayle had been as much of a pain. If Yassen had been through the same sort of conversation regarding Ian Rider. It was not a comparison he liked to linger on, but the knot in his stomach, guilt and dread and anxiety, remained long after they had left Graff's office.

* * *

Samantha Graff was slightly more willing to listen, but not by much.

"It has always been a risk. Others have tried before. MI6 would merely be one more on the list." She frowned slightly. "Iohannes is right. Hart is a dangerous man and too influential to alienate. I won't rule out the risk that he might be compromised, but it would be exceedingly hard to do to someone as well-connected as he is. Keep his dog on a tight leash. Never let it out of sight. If either of them act suspicious in any way, take the matter to me."

Not as good as Alex would have liked, but better than what Iohannes Graff had given them to work with.

Samantha Graff paused. "If anything goes wrong and can't be salvaged, erase all evidence. I don't trust the research staff. Use it as a last resort. This is a significant investment but not worth the trouble it would cause to leave evidence behind. Iohannes is a little too attached to his personal projects to give the order."

Yassen nodded slightly. The words settled heavily in Alex's mind. 'Erase all evidence'. Kill everyone. Destroy the facility. Yassen didn't even blink.

There were still two massive crates of explosives packed away on the _Fer de Lance._ Now Alex knew why.

He wondered if Iohannes Graff knew about those orders. Somehow Alex doubted it. It wasn't even like doing something like that would really erase all evidence. The information about the drug had to be backed up elsewhere, if nothing else then with Graff himself. Everyone knew he was behind it.

They knew he was behind it, but not the extent to which his wife had been involved. She had been very careful to stay out of things. With the evidence and research staff gone, the full blame would rest with her husband if anything went wrong. There would be no one alive to claim otherwise.

 _You will obey according to your own good judgement, up to and including her husband's assassination._

Yassen's order reappeared in Alex's mind, sudden and unwanted. He was starting to get a horrible suspicion just how far 'erase all evidence' would extend.

A year ago, Alex would have tried to do something. Now … Graff would never listen, his wife would deny everything, and there would be no evidence. It would be his word against hers, and Alex didn't doubt he would get to pay for it afterwards.

SCORPIA expected him to do his job. Samantha Graff was the client, and for however long they got paid, Alex was just another weapon in her arsenal.

* * *

The Graffs were very little help. Yassen warned Sagitta and the guards, of both the potential risk and the orders from Iohannes Graff.

They could detain Fox the moment he arrived, but not without possibly spooking Hart if he was MI6-compromised, too. And if he wasn't … by all accounts, Hart was exceptionally pleased with his bodyguard, and Graff did not want one of his wealthy investors unhappy. They had no proof. SCORPIA wouldn't have cared, they had removed people for less, but Graff didn't have the same callous attitude. Fox would be allowed to go free, then. Right up until the moment he as much as breathed wrong.

Yassen placed the photo and file in the middle of the table and pinned their people with a hard look.

"Ben Daniels, suspected MI6. If he is, Hart may be compromised as well. As getting on board Hart's yacht won't be an option, keep an eye on him at all times when he is on the island. Do not let him out of sight. Our employer refuses to entertain the notion Hart may be working with MI6 as well. Do not let his overconfidence get in the way of doing your jobs. If Daniels proves a little too curious, Graff wants him alive and in reasonable condition. We would lock him away immediately but not without going through Hart and potentially warning Daniels as well in the process."

"According to his file, he didn't pass SAS selection," Alex added. "I met him for a week and a half back then, and I'm pretty sure that's a lie. He was very good already then. Assume he's MI6 and former SAS. If we're wrong, it'll cost us nothing. If we're right and he manages to slip through security because we get lazy ..."

He didn't need to finish the sentence. They were all SCORPIA veterans.

Security would be upgraded as much as possible. The complete crackdown on surveillance would get harsh enough that a number of perfectly legitimate devices would need to be gone through individually to allow them to work – harsh enough, hopefully, to block even what an intelligence agency like MI6 or the CIA could manage to bring in.

Maybe they couldn't do anything about Ben Daniels without evidence, but they could make life exceedingly difficult for him. If he really were just a freelance bodyguard who had found that life in the SAS wasn't for him … well, Alex considered a little harassment fair payback for Brecon Beacons.

* * *

They went to Panama City eight days before the meeting. Johann had outgrown pretty much all of his summer clothes, and Hanna wasn't much better off. Someone, possibly Samantha, had made sure there had been some already there for them, but both preferred to buy their own.

It wasn't something Alex really understood but he didn't need to. He had always preferred to spend little time on shopping and a lot more on exploring everything he could. His favourite clothes had always been casual and easy to move around in. Now they were whatever his current assignment demanded.

If the Graff kids wanted to spend a day shopping, Alex would shrug and put up with it, because that was what they paid him for.

Several of the guards kept up Johann's self-defence lessons in the mornings. Sagitta would have been an option, but none of them seemed entirely sure how to handle kids that age. Hanna diligently kept up with her lessons, too, two hours every other day. Some asking around had resulted in Nathan as her instructor. The man had done that sort of thing freelance on occasion, and he did a decent enough job of it to satisfy Alex.

He had been a little bemused when Alex approached him.

"Why me?"

"Because you've done this sort of thing before, you are available while Johann has his own lessons, and Mrs Graff would prefer her daughter wasn't taught to shoot by someone who learned from Yassen Gregorovich."

Whatever Nathan had planned to counter with died rather abruptly against that reasoning.

"... Good point," he'd agreed, and that had been the end of that argument.

With Nathan on the morning shift, that made him one of the entourage for the day as well. Nathan for Johann, Contreras for Hanna, Bunnell for their mother – the awkward-looking bodyguard that Alex met on his first day; competent enough but still no more at ease around Alex or Yassen – and Alex himself along for additional security.

Alex, or rather Aleksandra for the day. He had spent the better part of an hour becoming Cheshire again and getting all his weapons strapped back into place out of sight and in very different clothes than usual.

Samantha and Hanna hadn't arrived yet when Alex approached the chopper, but Johann had. His eyes widened a little at someone unfamiliar. Alex could see Nathan talking to the pilot inside the chopper, but the man hadn't spotted him yet. How lax.

Alex grinned at Johann and didn't even attempt to do something about his voice. "Hey."

The penny dropped. About half a dozen emotions flickered through Johann's eyes, almost too quick to catch. Surprise, wonder, suspiciousness, understanding, and finally a glimpse of the calculating intelligence Alex had only been able to spot a few times when none of the adults around the boy were watching.

Johann Graff was an intelligent child. How much, he doubted most people around them knew, but his sister definitely did. They both took a lot after their father, but Hanna Graff – by birth or upbringing – had inherited enough of her mother's ruthlessness to lie to everyone around them, parents, staff, and even the killers hired to protect them, all in order to help hide her brother's potential. Alex didn't doubt for a second that their parents had no clue. Iohannes Graff would have insisted on introducing his son to the science side of things otherwise, and Samantha would most certainly have stepped up the harsher side of his education, too, like she had with Hanna.

He could spot the exact moment Johann realised he had seen. The boy glanced quickly inside the chopper, where Nathan was still discussing something or another with the pilot – probably the schedule, based on the papers – and then back to Alex.

There was a flicker of uncertainty, the first Alex had seen from Johann since they had arrived on the island. He could almost see the boy consider the various different approaches and discard them one by one, all within a few seconds.

He could see the moment he understood that unlike a number of adults in his life that were perfectly willing to overlook anything that went against their image of Johann, Alex was young enough not to dismiss it as just his imagination. A fifteen-year-old assassin was not about to underestimate someone just because they were only eleven.

Could see the moment he worked out how he might be able to handle it, and Alex found himself genuinely curious just what kind of solution the kid had found.

"Mother assigned you to us." Johann's voice didn't waver, though Alex could still see a bit of uncertainty in his eyes.

Alex nodded slightly. "She did."

"There is a confidentiality clause. You're not supposed to talk about your clients." That was definitely Hanna's influence. She must have sat him down and filled him in on the details when no one was within hearing range. Alex was impressed. With the sheer number of people watching them, that was no easy feat.

Memories of the two doing summer assignments for school together flickered through his mind, heads close together as Hanna explained something in a low murmur.

Oh, that was clever, especially for someone with no training at all.

Johann took a deep breath, a stubborn look in his eyes. "I can order you not to say anything."

Alex waited for a few seconds, just to make him sweat a little. Alex had already decided he would let him have that victory, he was really just being petty now.

Then he nodded slightly, echoing Yassen's body language, and the tension in Johann finally eased.

"Technically," Alex couldn't resist adding, "your mother still has the final say in everything I do, but I think we can both agree she doesn't need to know."

"Thank you," Johann said softly.

Alex would probably mention it to Yassen at some point, but their parents really didn't need to know. If Hanna and Johann himself both agreed that staying quiet about Johann's potential was the better option, Alex would play along.

There was movement in the chopper. Nathan had obviously just spotted him. Alex's attention flickered to the door, and Johann caught on in a second.

"You look like a girl," he told Alex right as Nathan stepped out, his words half wonder and half accusation. Alex definitely liked the kid. "Why do you look like a girl?"

"Yes, Alex" Nathan repeated dryly. He had put the pieces together fast enough from Johann's question. "Why _do_ you 'look like a girl'?"

Alex shrugged and deliberately missed the point. "Well, I'm guessing it's the dress. People tend to assume someone in a dress is female."

He got a flat look from Nathan in return and sighed as he continued. "Because Alex Rider is a wanted man, and the odds that there are foreign intelligence agents in Panama City are bigger than we like. So I will be Aleksandra for the day. Technically this disguise was considered classified, but with the kind of money SCORPIA gets paid for this, it was decided that it was worth risking it."

Johann had never stopped watching him as he spoke. "You look weird like a girl. You're too tall. Where are your guns? Isn't the wig really sweaty?" he finally asked when Alex fell silent. "Doesn't it feel like a hat? That would be really sweaty."

"Yes, don't ask, and yes, it does," Alex replied, "but it's better than being recognised. And no one would really expect me to dress up like this."

If he hadn't just had the talk with the kid, if he hadn't seen that sharp intelligence in his eyes, it would have been so easy to dismiss it as a figment of his imagination. Some desire to see the Graffs' intelligence in what was obviously a fairly average child. Hanna had to have taught him to hide it for years. It was no impulsive plan from their side.

The other two Graffs Alex would babysit for the day approach from the house, accompanied by Yassen. Samantha Graff paused when she saw him. Hanna stared, but Alex could see the moment Samantha put the little hints together. Johann had shut up immediately, not about to make it any easier for his mother or his sister.

"Well, Alex," Samantha finally murmured, taking in his appearance. "That is very nicely done."

Alex felt a little like a particularly interesting bug under a microscope under her close scrutiny. It was a relief when she turned to Yassen. "You're quite sure SCORPIA won't part with him?"

"Quite," Yassen agreed dryly.

Samantha paused. Glanced for a second at Alex again. "A long-term assignment, perhaps?" she suggested thoughtfully. "SCORPIA would retain ownership, but he would be permanently stationed with us. We would guarantee him an education at one of the most prestigious boarding schools in the world, in a position to build a strong network for your employers among the future leaders of the world, and with the option of further education at whatever university Hanna chooses."

Something in Yassen's eyes turned equally thoughtful. "Perhaps an option to discuss after this assignment," he suggested.

The words settled uneasily in Alex. On one hand, no one was asking him to kill someone. On the other, something like that would be months and months in a school, playing the role of a normal student to keep from drawing attention to himself, and he would be entirely on his own. The Graff kids would be there, but he would be supposed to protect them. No Yassen, no Sagitta, no kind of support, and unnervingly close to England.

He didn't think Yassen was serious about it, more that it was a diplomatic way to refuse, but he could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. And if Samantha Graff offered enough money for the assignment, Yassen might not get a say in it at all. It was something to ask him about later. Much later.

It seemed to appease Mrs Graff, though. She turned her attention to her son and gave him the look that parents of small kids all over seemed to have mastered, the quick check for any dirt or stains. Then she herded him into the chopper before Johann's clean state had the chance to change, their bodyguards in tow.

Hanna smiled. She looked genuinely amused. "I like your sandals."

"Light and practical," Alex agreed. "And no heels."

She laughed and vanished into the chopper to get settled. Contreras followed and left Alex alone with Yassen.

Alex would have preferred more people but they didn't want to draw too much attention, either. They were already a group of seven, even if three of them would count as kids. Adding more, and it would be too much.

"Nothing should happen," Yassen said. "No one was given advance notice. If necessary, you know your orders."

Alex just nodded. Get the Graffs out of the situation and to safety through any means. They had enough money backing them that whatever Alex had to do would simply go away one way or the other. Iohannes and Samantha Graff would spare no expense when it came to their children's safety, and that would extend to the people who ensured that safety as well.

It shouldn't come to those extremes, though. Alex still worried, but he was used to that by now and he knew it was to be expected. It would be his first time in a highly populated public place while serving as a bodyguard. A trial by fire before it would become deadly serious during Iohannes Graff's little get-together.

Alex took a deep breath. Yassen looked faintly amused. "You will do fine."

"Hopefully," Alex muttered.

He got into the chopper before he could change his mind and bring half of Sagitta with him for backup.

The interior was elegant and luxurious in a way that SCORPIA's own helicopters definitely weren't. Meant for civilian use rather than military.

Alex put on his headset and strapped himself in next to Hanna. The seats were soft, and even the headset looked customized, gleaming white instead of the grey or khaki or green Alex was used to. He felt decadent just sitting there.

The pilot took off and Santa Catarina Island fell away beneath them. The flight was perfectly smooth and the pilot obvious competent. Alex would still have felt better with their own pilot in control.

Nothing to do about it. Alex took a slow breath, tried to release some of the tension in his body, and accepted that backup wouldn't happen. He would just have to deal with it for however many hours it would take.

Yassen considered it educational. Yassen also wasn't the one playing bodyguard for a full day of shopping.

Alex could ready feel the first signs of a headache. It would be a long day.

* * *

The mood was relaxed. The weather was nice. Panama City was crowded and vibrant and alive, which made for a wonderful day for the Graffs and a headache for security.

Even then, Alex adapted. Remembered his lessons, the few days he'd had of them. Remembered everything else he had picked up along the way, too, and used all of it now.

In between keeping a sharp eye on their surroundings, Alex amused himself by following the path of information from Johann to Hanna. With their mother and bodyguards hovering nearby, it was limited how much they could say that wouldn't be overheard.

Even then, they managed. A sentence here and there. A glance from Hanna at Alex that told him plainly what the topic of discussion was.

A few hours into the trip, after Alex – Cheshire – had stood guard outside of Hanna's fitting room, the girl paused as she passed by him on her way out.

"Thank you," she said, so softly that only their close proximity let Alex hear at all. "For Johann. You didn't have to."

Because at the end of it, Alex was still under Samantha Graff's command. He had been temporarily assigned to Hanna and Johann, but on their mother's orders, and Hanna understood that just fine. Alex was their security, but they had no real power over him.

"I got orders to protect you," Alex answered just as quietly. "I'm pretty sure that includes from your parents, too."

For a second, Hanna looked tired and weary and far older than her age. "He's too young. I want him to have the choice."

She wanted him to have the choice, because it was years too late for Hanna herself. Her words brought back memories of Yassen on the _Fer de Lance_ , of being lost and alone in a world he had no place in, a world he was entirely too young for as well, and the lingering pain at the reminder was both familiar and expected.

She wanted to give him the choice, the one that neither Alex nor Hanna herself had ever really been given. A chance. And maybe he would decide it was his sort of world, anyway, and that his father's scientific research was endlessly fascinating, but then it would have been his choice. His, and not one forced on him by ambitious or enthusiastic parents.

How old had she been when she had been forced to act on Johann's behalf? To sit down and explain to an intelligent, inquisitive kid that his intelligence and inquisitiveness would mean an introduction to a world a child had no place in? How long had she suspected that not everything their parents were involved in was strictly legal? It couldn't have been that long after they moved to Santa Catarina, their act was too good for that. Too familiar to both of them. Johann would have been eight or nine, Hanna fourteen at the most. The same age Alex had been when he had found himself at the Royal & General and seen any hope of a normal life destroyed with a few, simple sentences.

"If they find out, it won't be from me," he promised and meant it.

Hanna smiled, and he knew she understood.

* * *

They returned to Santa Catarina again in the early evening. Technically Alex had done nothing physically more demanding than going through shop after shop with the Graffs. Mentally he was exhausted in a way he hadn't been since … he wasn't actually sure. It wasn't the tired, weary weight of blood on his hands and lives on his conscience like it had been after Ramos. It was bone-deep exhaustion, ten hours on high alert and always aware of every single potential threat around them.

Nothing had happened. Not a thing. Hanna got a blister and Johann fell asleep in the chopper on the way back. There were an unholy amount of shopping bags to carry into the house.

Not a single thing of note had happened. Alex still wanted to sleep for two days.

Maybe it got easier with experience, but right now Alex was pretty sure bodyguard duty was every bit as exhausting as his Malagosto training had been.

* * *

Six days before the meeting, in the middle of the organised chaos that was trying to whip island security into shape, Alex was summoned by the executive board. He was given no reason, just orders to report to them in Dubai immediately upon his arrival. There would be a plane waiting in Panama City.

"Take someone with you." Yassen's tone of voice left no room for arguments. "It is not a good sign to have an operation such as this interrupted."

It was never a question whether Alex would follow orders. Yassen wasn't happy, though only months of training with the man left Alex able to tell even that much. Yassen wasn't happy, and even if a sudden summon like that hadn't been unsettling enough, Yassen's reaction would have done the trick. If it was that bad of a sign, Alex would have preferred to go alone and not put someone else at risk if things ended up really bad, but he knew that wasn't an option.

He nodded once, sharply. Ran through the mental list of people they had available. They needed Marcus on the island as the CO, but Adams was an option. Marcus could manage without him for a few days, and Alex got along well with him. He doubted there was anything one person could really do if it came to that, but he also knew Yassen well enough to tell when he should just follow orders and not argue. If nothing else, the company was nice … which was probably Yassen's plan in the first place.

It would have been a long, anxious flight on his own. Company would help, at least a little.

"And Alex -"

"- Remember my instructions," Alex finished the sentence before Yassen could. "Yes, sir."

 _Be respectful. Obey. Never argue._ The last-minute instructions Yassen had given him months ago at Malagosto had been burned into his mind ever since. They had very likely saved his life with Kurst. He hoped they wouldn't need to again.

Alex tried to remember anything he might have done that could have caused that sort of reaction from the board. He could think of nothing. He had followed his orders to the letter. He had heard no complaints, only compliments. He had contacted no one, hadn't tried to sabotage anything, hadn't even spoken a bad word about SCORPIA anywhere but in the privacy of his own mind … which, with SCORPIA's access to all sorts of drugs, probably wasn't actually all that private. He couldn't recall any missing days, though, and he had been on the island now for three weeks. If it was something that bad, they would have summoned him earlier, wouldn't they?

He was drawing a complete blank, and the unease settled like a tight knot in his stomach. It had to be important to summon him halfway across the world. It would be almost two full days before he would be back on the island, and they wouldn't do that for something that wasn't serious. A test? Proof of his obedience? Alex didn't know and that was almost the worst of it.

Adams seemed to have picked up on it, because neither spoke much on the flight. It was a small, chartered private jet, but with plenty of room for a small crew and only two passengers. Alex brought the bare basics in terms of luggage. A clean uniform and toiletries. A stack of files he still needed to go through. Just enough for two days.

They were met by a white Mercedes at the airport in Dubai. It had taken more than twenty hours of travel already, and Alex hadn't exactly slept well on the flight. A clean uniform and some cold water would have to do, since actual rest hadn't been much of an option.

The driver obviously had orders. He never spoke to them, just followed traffic through the familiar city towards their destination. When they finally arrived, Alex recognised the building he had been brought to when he got his first assignment.

It had been Kurst back then. That penthouse office was probably for general use by the board, but that still didn't make the uneasiness go away. According to Yassen, Kurst was still the most hostile of the board when it came to Alex. If they had something to see him about in person that was important enough to pull him from an active assignment with no notice … Kurst would probably be there.

Alex glanced at Adams right before the car stopped. "You've never met any of the executive board before, have you?"

"No, sir." Either Adams got the seriousness of the situation or he picked up on Alex's tension, or very likely both, because he had slipped back into the steady voice of the trained soldier with his superior.

"Then let me do the talking. Whatever happens, don't do anything, don't even move, and don't speak unless spoken to." Yassen's own instructions for Alex that first time had been meant for an operative, the board's extended will. Adams was just a soldier to them, not even the commander of a team. His job was to be part of the décor, invisible unless they needed him, and he was far more expendable than one of SCORPIA's elite operatives would ever be. It was all Alex could do to protect him.

Whatever they wanted to see him for, he hoped they would leave Adams out of it. SCORPIA did not appreciate wasting good resources, and Adams was a skilled soldier with highly specialised additional training. Valuable enough, hopefully, to keep him a little safer if it came to that.

There was a uniformed guard waiting for them.

"Mr Rider," he greeted. "They are expecting you."

Adams' presence was ignored. Alex wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad sign. The word 'they' certainly wasn't a good one. That meant more than just one person. He couldn't imagine anything serious enough for the full board to want to see him. The only things bad enough for that – treason was all he could think of – would probably have seen him delivered straight into Dr Three's hands, if not simply disposed of. Still, he had never seen more than one member of the board at one time, and he really didn't like the implications of that.

The elevator ride was silent and tense. The two guards that met them looked as expressionless as they had the first time Alex had been there, but that didn't mean much. He did recognise the route to the office and he wasn't surprised when he and Adams were both let inside and the door closed behind them.

Dr Three and Zeljan Kurst waited by the massive desk. They were kept company by six armed guards by the edges of the room, positioned to keep any visitors in their sight and everyone else out of it.

Alex forced himself to ignore it. Made a small gesture to keep Adams by the door and took five steps into the room, well into the potential line of fire before he stood at ease. "Sirs."

He kept his voice calm and steady, and he mentally shoved aside all the guesses he had made about why they wanted to see him. There was nothing he could do about it now, anyway.

"Orion." Kurst's accented voice gave nothing away. He crossed the room to stop behind Alex, and Alex made an effort to stay perfectly still. Kurst had an intimidating presence and to have the man at his back was unnerving at best.

Alex got no warning before the man moved. Just the sudden, sharp twist of his arm and brute force bearing down on him. Alex made no attempt to fight. His knees hit the carpeted floor painfully hard, and the distinct sound of six heavy guns stopped any thoughts he might have had of resisting.

Not a good sign, Yassen had said with classic understatement. Whatever the board wanted to _discuss_ with him, Alex knew he was dead if he made any attempt to fight. At least Adams hadn't moved. Alex was very sure he would have heard a gunshot if the man had as much as shifted in response to Alex's treatment.

Dr Three crossed the room as well. Kurst let go of Alex's arm. His shoulder throbbed a little but it hurt less without the active strain on it.

"Your shirt." Dr Three's voice sounded almost friendly, the way it always did, but it wasn't a request.

Alex took off his shirt, careful to make no sudden movements. He felt more than saw Dr Three crouch down carefully behind him and felt surprisingly strong, sure fingers press between his shoulder blades. He stayed where he was, on his knees and utterly still as Dr Three examined the spot where the tracker had been injected. Now that he had an idea of what they actually wanted, he was acutely aware of the number of guns aimed at him. A check of his tracker. Doubts about his loyalty, then. Those guards were not there for show.

It explained why both of them were there as well. Dr Three was the most familiar with Alex and he was a master at reading body language. He wouldn't even need to watch Alex's face or whatever emotions he couldn't hide. The shift of his shoulders and the tension in his muscles would be plenty. And Kurst … the man still disliked him. If Alex had betrayed SCORPIA, he didn't doubt Kurst would be delighted to see the punishment carried out in person.

"It has not been tampered with."

Alex hadn't expected it to be, either, but it was still a relief. The guards never moved, though, and Alex heard the low hum of electronics behind him. A check of what it had recorded of his movements as well, then.

Alex didn't know why. He also didn't ask and he made a conscious effort not to tense a single muscle. If he looked too tense, if he looked like he was about to attack or escape … even the smallest thing could be enough to mark him as guilty. Kurst, at least, would shoot first and sort out the actual matter of his guilt afterwards. It was just as much a check of his reactions as it was of his tracker. If Orion really was just Cossack's obedient student, he should have nothing to fear. SCORPIA liked their mind games. Alex wasn't afraid to admit that those little games could be brutally efficient.

Alex slipped into the same mild trance and distant calm as he did when he was behind a sniper rifle and did the only thing he could.

He waited for Dr Three's verdict, whatever it would be.

Long minutes later, the man spoke again. "Nothing. He never deviated from orders."

Kurst nodded. Only then did the guards stand down. Alex never moved, acutely aware he hadn't been instructed to and very determined to play it safe.

"One of Blunt's little games, then. Use the clone and some useful intel, and hope we will think Orion passed them the information. A petty attempt to cost us a valuable operative. Blunt was always a vindictive little man. The board will leave its interrogation in your capable hands, doctor. Do dispose of it when you've finished your research." Kurst's words were directed at his colleague but his focus never left Alex.

 _The clone._

The Grief clone, Alex's clone – he had thought it had died in the fire at Brookland, that it was _done_ , and now -

MI6 must have found it alive. Found it and decided to use it, and Blunt had said nothing, because why would Alex possibly need to know he had a psychotic _clone_ running around somewhere in the world? It could have been useful in all sorts of ways next time Alex had refused to respond to blackmail. A murder committed by him, with his fingerprints, and his face, and who would believe Alex when he claimed to be innocent? Blunt would have done it if he had to, Alex knew that with horrible certainty. He was the type for that.

And then Alex had turned to SCORPIA, and they had obviously decided to use it for other purposes instead. If Alex had been any less obedient, if he had actually tried to get in touch with someone about information, if he had given the board even a hint of an idea he wasn't trustworthy -

\- Alex would have been killed. Alex would have been killed as an accomplice of that _clone_ and it would have been MI6's fault.

He felt vaguely dizzy, like the world was distant and too clear at the same time. It wasn't enough that Blunt used children. Now he used clones as well. Alex remembered staring at himself, a perfect copy except for the unhinged expression, and he suppressed a shudder. What else had they used it for? Would they have sent it to Jack under the guise of being Alex himself? Would they have let it take over his life? How far would they have gone to get Alex Rider – _any_ Alex Rider – back under MI6's control?

He imagined the clone with an unknowing Jack, unhinged and homicidal and determined to get even with Alex, and he wanted to throw up.

Let Dr Three have his fun. Alex never wanted to think about _that thing_ again.

"The only known surviving clone from Grief's experiments." Dr Three sounded thoughtful. "It will be interesting to see how it reacts compared to a naturally grown human being."

Kurst nodded but his attention remained solely on Alex. "You have been very well behaved," he commented. "What were Cossack's orders?"

" _Be respectful, obey, never argue,_ sir," Alex recited. That one he could answer even through the roiling mess of emotions.

"An exceptionally gifted man, our Cossack," Dr Three remarked. He sounded almost fond. Alex knew what he referred to. Everyone seemed convinced that Yassen had beaten that teenage insolence and stubbornness out of him by any means necessary. Alex had taken a long time to catch on to it, and he still didn't like the implications of it, but he had learned to appreciate it for the protection it was. No one seemed to believe him when he tried to tell them otherwise, anyway.

Alex didn't respond. It wasn't a question and wasn't directed at him, either, so right now it was safer to just keep his mouth shut and keep up the impression of Cossack's obedient apprentice. To focus on his breathing and his heartbeat and try to forget about the thought of a copy of himself in one of SCORPIA's cells, a perfect replica with his face and his name and – if MI6 had succeeded – possibly his _life -_

One breath. Another. Slow and steady, because he couldn't afford anything else, not with so many people watching his every move and reaction.

"Indeed." Kurst kept his focus on Alex as the seconds stretched on. Alex didn't move. Then the man finally made a small gesture and Alex got to his feet again. His knees hurt slightly from the hard impact with the floor but that wouldn't take long to fade. He still had his shirt in his hand. He could put it back on later. Right now he just wanted out of there.

"Give my approval to Cossack. He did well with you. Dismissed, Orion."

"Sir." Alex nodded once, sharply, and left before the man could change his mind. Adams easily fell into place behind him.

Neither spoke on the way to the car. Alex slipped on his shirt but otherwise stayed silent. Only when they were back in the air an hour later did Adams finally speak.

"They pulled you halfway around the world for a check of your tracker?" he asked quietly. "You weren't kidding about the complicated relationship with SCORPIA."

Alex closed his eyes and relaxed into the comfortable seat and felt the adrenaline and elation of a near brush with death settle in. The sudden, frantic drumbeat of his heart. The pulse rushing in his ears. "Complicated family history, and I used to work for MI6. Not willingly, but still a mark against me."

He was uncomfortably aware that the tracker could very well just have saved his life.

He didn't try to explain about the clone, Adams didn't need to know, but his relationship with MI6 wasn't that much of a secret anymore. Adams was a smart man and knew when it was best not to ask questions. Curiosity was not a valued trait in SCORPIA's people.

Alex didn't speak much on the rest of the way back to Santa Catarina. When he briefly slept, his nightmares were taken up by visions of himself, hard eyes and sharp smile and covered in blood as he killed his way through faceless crowds of people, and he couldn't tell if he was himself or his clone.

Yassen met them by the helicopter when it landed in the very early morning some forty-five hours after they had left. They had radioed ahead to let him know they were all returning, but Alex knew Yassen wanted to see for himself.

A slight bit of attachment and concern that Alex knew Yassen Gregorovich was not supposed to possess.

Adams was dismissed with a curt nod. Yassen led Alex back to the _Fer de Lance_ and didn't speak until they were safely alone in Yassen's cabin.

Both were silent for a long time, Yassen taking in Alex's appearance and looking for any sign that something was wrong and Alex letting him, too tired to really mind.

"You haven't slept," Yassen finally said.

"Bad dreams." Alex paused. Took a deep breath. "The Grief clone survived. It didn't die. MI6 kept it and they tried to use it for … something. And SCORPIA captured it. They recalled me to check my tracker. When it showed nothing and I didn't look guilty about anything, they let me leave and Dr Three got the clone for interrogation and experimentation. Also, Kurst sends his approval. You did well with me."

Back on safe ground and in Yassen's company, Alex could feel his self-control give out. He had barely managed to keep hold of it on the plane, and now it crumbled completely.

He was trembling, the events of the past two days finally catching up with him. Fear and fury and adrenaline and apprehension and disgust all entwined in one horrible maelstrom of emotions, and he closed his eyes tightly and wanted to cry.

Then Yassen was there, a solid, comforting presence as Alex weathered the emotions to the best of his abilities. Slow, steady breaths until the tremors slowed down and faded and the maelstrom had become something less overwhelmingly horrible and more like a hard knot of anxiety in his chest.

One breath. Then another, and another, until Alex finally opened his eyes. Met Yassen's calm expression, only a glint of concern somewhere deep in his eyes giving any hint as to his personal feelings.

"It was easier when I thought he was dead," Alex admitted quietly. "It was done and over with. He would never get the chance to hurt me, none of them would. My clone was dead. The rest would never see the light of day again. They were probably killed the moment they had been interrogated; they were too dangerous to leave alive."

Alex swallowed. Continued before he lost his nerve. "The clones wanted to see a human dissection. Grief was going to indulge them and dissect me alive. Keep me in pain and breathing for as long as he possibly could."

He still had the occasional nightmare about that. Even now, even with so many other things to haunt him, it still showed up sometimes. Blind terror, strapped to a table completely immobilised, and the scalpel about to cut, and that was despite knowing that every last clone and Grief himself were dead. Now, with one last clone out there … the knowledge that it had been out there, using _his_ identity; a danger to everyone Alex had ever known …

Yassen was silent for a second. "There is a possibility that the Grief clone will suffer that fate," he eventually admitted. "It is mentioned in your file under the Point Blanc mission. Dr Three has taken a liking to you. It would not be … unlikely that he would choose such a method for that reason. I suspect he would like to take the body apart out of curiosity if nothing else. It would matter little to him if the clone was still alive at the time."

Alex shuddered. The words did nothing to help on things. He would have nightmares of himself in that clone's place, as Dr Three's expendable guinea pig.

"Rest, Alex," Yassen said quietly. "Sleep if you can. Stay on the yacht. You have today off."

Alex nodded mutely. He was grateful but couldn't muster up much more of an acknowledgement than that. He was exhausted. He couldn't imagine how he would have managed to get through the day if he'd had to work.

Come morning, Yassen would put him through a gruelling three-hour workout. They both knew he needed actual downtime and a chance to sleep with no stress and no nightmares. They also both knew it wasn't an option. For now, physical exhaustion would have to do.

Dr Three sent video evidence of Julius Grief's death two days later.

Yassen confirmed its contents. Alex refused to watch.

* * *

A/N 2: In canon, SCORPIA considered Julius the useful one. In this case, the comparison came out in Alex's favour instead. I know some of you have been waiting for Julius to show up, but I'm afraid that's all Alex will 'see' of him (though he might show up in the planned second interlude). One of the severe limitations of Alex's POV, unfortunately.

Next: Join SCORPIA, see the world, meet new and interesting people.


	28. Arrivals

Youya: I don't have any immediate plans for other fics, but then, it'll take a while to wrap this one up, too, so who knows.

Andrei: I'm from flat, rainy, windy Denmark. So nowhere that pops up in this fic, basically.

* * *

The day before the guests were due, they ran through the last details and made sure everything was as ready as it could be. Yassen handled Iohannes Graff. Alex, unsurprisingly, got stuck with Samantha.

"Security for our children?"

"Leon and Jemaine for Johann," Alex replied. "They've helped with his self-defence lessons, so he's familiar with them, and they're both good with kids. Both have worked security for clients before. Hanna didn't have any preferences so she'll get different guards each day. We've got a schedule set up."

To break up the possible monotony, Alex didn't say. It also didn't need mentioned that the guards would be heavily armed. Two guards for each of them at all times. Nothing should happen, but the Graffs paid them to be paranoid.

"I'll be her primary security during her two meetings," he continued. "Marcus will take over general security for the duration of that. I'll run through the instructions with both Hanna and Johann today again and make sure it sticks. If anything happens, their security has orders to protect and if necessary evacuate them as their first priority."

Samantha nodded slowly. "Everything should be in order, then. And Alex ..."

He met her eyes. There was not a drop of warmth in them. "I hold you personally responsible for their lives and well-being."

Alex took a slow breath. Nodded and understood the underlying threat quite clearly. "Yes, ma'am," he agreed.

She smiled, and in that moment she once again became nothing more than Iohannes Graff's beautiful trophy wife. "Excellent. I'm sure you have other things to see to."

 _Dismissed_ , she didn't need to say. Alex got that part just fine, and he followed the order without hesitation. He had two kids to hunt down for a briefing, anyway.

* * *

Alex ran through the last-minute things with Hanna and Johann together. It was easier and would save him time. They had been told the instructions several times already but it never hurt to go through them again.

Not that the instructions were all that complicated. Listen to security. Stay in your own wing of the house. Don't be stupid.

"And if anything happens ..." Alex said, trailing off.

"... if we run into anyone who isn't SCORPIA's, we can't trust them," Johann finished. He didn't roll his eyes but it looked pretty close.

Hanna sighed. "We've been over this four times -"

"Five." Johann sounded a little bitter.

"- Five times in the past three days," Hanna corrected. "I think we understand."

This time, _Alex_ felt like rolling his eyes.

 _Tell me the same when you can remember those instructions under fire,_ he didn't say, but he was pretty tempted.

"We want to make sure those instructions stick in case anything happens," Alex said instead, a little more diplomatically. "Common sense tends to go out the window in emergencies."

Malagosto had taught them that with gleeful viciousness. Some of those planned exercises been deliberately planned as catastrophic failures, too, just to see how the students would hold up under pressure.

Johann frowned. "You make it sound like something will happen."

"Your parents pay us to prepare for the worst case scenario," Alex said bluntly. "You don't pay for two months of Yassen Gregorovich's time unless there is a real, legitimate threat. Not everyone approves of your father's choice in business associates."

Or hobbies, though he didn't need to mention that.

Hanna watched him carefully. "You believe something will happen." It was not a question.

Alex thought of the guest list; of Fox and Hart and MI6, of the personal and political issues that would lurk right beneath the polished business façade, of half a dozen or more competing interests, and settled for the truth.

"I think it's a realistic possibility."

Johann looked startled by his bluntness and in that moment Alex could clearly see Iohannes Graff in him, the eyes and the perpetually startled expression, and then the boy looked to his sister. Hanna watched Alex with sharp eyes so very similar to her mother's. Then she nodded once.

"Go through the instructions again," she agreed. "Just in case."

This time, Alex noted, they were a lot more attentive.

* * *

Dawn broke bright and early right past six. Alex had already been up for an hour by then. He was painfully aware that for the next three days, he would be on the same sort of schedule he had been in Singapore. Eighteen-hour workdays or more. Yassen needed very little sleep and could handle it just fine, though more than a week of it definitely left the man dangerously annoyed and short-tempered. Alex was fifteen. He had been exhausted in Singapore. He was already counting down to the next time he would be able to sleep more than five hours in a row. The only good thing to say about it was that exhaustion left little room for nightmares. Singapore had taught him that, too.

Like most teenagers, Tom had liked to sleep in and could easily sleep for twelve hours or more if someone let him. Alex had been almost as bad sometimes. Now he considered a consistent eight hours of sleep for more than just a few days at a time a luxury. He wondered sometimes what Tom would have thought of that.

Brecon Beacons had been miserable and muddy and sleep-deprived but it had nothing on real operations. Alex hadn't needed to stay constantly focused back then, one small mistake from disaster. Even Malagosto's brutal schedule seemed kind of relaxed compared to that sort of thing. The instructors had demanded perfection, of course, but there was room for mistakes. They were there to learn. Life in the field left no room for that.

There were three helicopters by one of the two beaches, larger and more menacing than the Graffs' personal chopper, and big enough between the three of them to transport all of SCORPIA's people on the island if needed. An additional civilian chopper had been chartered as backup for the Graffs'. The _Fer de Lance_ had visited a marina on the mainland a few days before and returned fully resupplied. The crates with explosives had been moved to the island. With twelve-hour shifts for her crew set up for the duration of the visit and the last supplies unloaded, she was ready to depart with very little notice.

Security was set up, tested and checked and checked again. The staff was cleared to the best of their ability. Everyone knew the plans and the schedules and the visitors.

They had done everything they could. It was too late to change anything. All they could do now, Alex knew, was hope it all went well.

* * *

Iohannes Graff looked full of restless energy; the kid waiting impatiently for the guests to arrive for his birthday party. His wife looked more composed but Alex could see the slight edge to her motions. The slight tension. She knew what was at stake, far more so than her husband.

Johann Graff had thrown a fit that morning, and Alex honestly couldn't tell if it was an act or genuine. Johann wanted to see his friends. He wanted to go do something. He didn't want to be on the island, he didn't want the guards around, and he didn't like his father's stupid friends, and he hated everyone.

He had stormed off after that. His mother had sighed and followed, as had the two guards Alex had assigned to him.

Probably not an act, Alex had decided. The tension in the house was bad enough that a real tantrum like that wouldn't even have been a surprise. He was a smart kid, but he was still just eleven. Intelligence did not equal maturity and sensibility. Not even in adults, as Alex had learned the hard way.

Hanna Graff has just watched silently. She had looked tired already. Alex doubted she had slept much.

The staff, unnaturally silent and almost unseen on a normal day, had managed to become all but invisible overnight. Alex would have been impressed if he hadn't already had a lot of other things on his mind.

Half an hour before the first visitor was due, Alex went to put on his full uniform. He couldn't postpone it any longer. It would be hot and humid and miserable outside, and he would be dripping sweat within the hour. It was the first assignment where he had to wear the full set, a light ballistic vest included. He doubted it would be the last. At least it wasn't the full set of body armour. The vest he wore now was light enough to fit under the uniform and he didn't wear a helmet. Full combat gear would just send the wrong signal.

When the first chopper arrived shortly before noon, it should have been a relief to finally have the wait over with. All Alex felt was the knot of anxiety grow stronger.

* * *

Sahu was Indian and in his fifties. Alex's first impression was that of a calm, reserved man. His English was accented but strong and perfectly understandable, and he greeted both Yassen and Alex with perfect politeness before they led him and his 'assistant' – a muscular, armed, grim-looking man – inside to meet the Graffs.

Alex wasn't surprised. Sahu was comfortably wealthy but not obscenely rich, and he had worked hard for everything he had. He was also a professional negotiator and had to know the value of staying on good terms with everyone from the kitchen staff and to Iohannes Graff himself.

Like most people Alex had met in his new line of work, Sahu went solely by his surname during any sort of formal business. He never offered anyone the use of his first name.

He also spoke a number of languages and greeted Iohannes Graff in German. Like Alex, Sahu didn't speak Swiss German, but Graff was perfectly able to understand Standard German, and the diplomatic gesture seemed to go over well.

Alex watched as the two exchanged greetings and standard pleasantries; nothing interesting and absolute nothing he hadn't expected.

Sahu's bodyguard never spoke and never moved far from his charge, hard eyes taking in the surroundings and any sign of trouble, however slight.

That out of the way, Sahu turned to Samantha Graff and switched to English.

"Dr Graff." Sahu smiled, perfectly polite and with just enough warmth to seem genuine. Alex knew the fact that the man had used to her actual title would already have made her a lot more inclined to like him. "I read your dissertations. Your work on neurology and pain stimulus is inspired. My wife is herself a doctor and I'll admit to having adopted somewhat of an interest in the medical sciences from her."

And Sahu went up another notch in her estimate, Alex could tell. She wasn't just acting anymore but was genuinely pleased. He had been around her long enough to pick up on the small hints.

Sahu was _good._ Alex suddenly understood much better why he represented so many customers.

"Mr Sahu," she replied. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Sometimes a good negotiator's work is best done unseen, but even then your reputation is exceptional."

By that point, Alex tuned out the conversation again. He was pretty sure how it would go, anyway, full of compliments and borderline bull. He focused on body language and Sahu's grim assistant instead and took the chance to get a bit more used to that kind of job in a reasonably safe situation.

Sahu was the least likely threat among the guests. His assistant looked ready to deal violence at a moment's notice, but Sahu himself was the least likely of all of them to start anything. He had no reason to. As the only one of the six representatives, he alone wasn't a wanted man. He had highly dubious clients, of course, but Sahu himself had done nothing that was actually illegal – nothing anyone had been able to prove, anyway. He was a professional negotiator. A representative, nothing more. Enough shady government agencies had made use of his services and connections that he was left alone simply because he was very, very useful to quite a number of people.

Sahu was a consummate professional. He had no personal interest in the drug, or the other potential customers, or even SCORPIA's presence on the island. He was only there to negotiate the best possible terms for the clients he represented.

For that alone, Alex was willing to admit he didn't entirely dislike the man. Unlike the rest of the degenerates that Graff had invited, at least Sahu wasn't a potential problem.

* * *

Most of the visitors would arrive by chopper and stay in the guest facilities on the island, but there were two exceptions. Those who – like Yassen – didn't just represent someone but had strong personal reasons not to entrust their safety with someone else. The first exception was a painfully familiar yacht that arrived shortly past noon. Forewarned, the _Fer de Lance_ had moved from the pier to make room and had instead anchored a comfortable distance from shore. Alex strongly suspected security concerns had a lot to say about that, too.

The _Victory_ settled easily where the _Fer de Lance_ had been moored just hours before. She was as brightly white and pristine as Alex remembered from Singapore. If there were any bloodstains left, Alex couldn't see them. He still saw red against blinding white when he closed his eyes, sunshine and clouds and dead bodies, but the yacht was spotless when he opened his eyes again. He wondered how long it had taken them to get everything clean.

The crew was in uniform and looked a little too military to be purely there to sail the yacht. They stayed on board, though, and only three people approached Yassen and Alex where they waited by the pier.

Graff was inside in the nice, pleasant air conditioning. Or more likely underground in his lab if his wife hadn't managed to keep him from vanishing again the moment Sahu had retired to his rooms to get settled. At least the weather promised to hold. It would rain for an hour or so in the afternoon, but that was still a few hours away.

Alex recognised Gheorghe Marinescu and his two assistants from the files they had been given. He went by his surname as well. He was in his late forties, with an old, pale scar that ran from the outer edge of his eyebrow, perilously close to his left eye, and continued across the cheek to end at his chin. It cut a thin line through his short, trimmed beard, and looked like someone had done their level best to cut his face in half and come close to succeeding.

He was also clearly familiar with Yassen.

"Gregorovich," he greeted. "Someone must have paid a pretty penny to get you on security detail."

His English was accented but what really caught Alex's attention was the roughness to his voice. He didn't know what sort of injury had caused something like that, but it had to have hurt.

Marinescu's gaze sharpened as it focused on Alex. Shifted slightly to watch the _Victory_ behind them, like Alex had shortly before, before it refocused on him. "And Alex Rider. You recognise her, don't you? The _Victory._ "

Alex didn't respond but something in his silence must have given him away, because Marinescu's attention flickered back to Yassen. "So this was the other operative in Singapore. Quite the coup, stealing MI6's prized teenage spy from right under their noses. Hunter's son at that. He could be a damn clone of his father."

 _Clone._ Alex didn't flinch at the word but it was a close call. His close resemblance to his father felt tainted now, in a way it hadn't before.

"Marinescu." Yassen's greeting was as calm as ever. "Alex, Gheorghe Marinescu, the representative of Glaive Defense Services. Marinescu, Alex Rider."

"Orion, wasn't it?" Marinescu didn't wait for a response. Alex wasn't even surprised he knew. "Congratulations on your graduation. Fastest, surest way to end up on the most wanted lists of about half of the intelligence agencies in the world. Damn good way to get business, though," he admitted. "That does make up for it."

"Well, I was already on them," Alex pointed out. "MI6 got a little annoyed when I left. I might've been bumped up a few places on the lists, though. You'd think they had better things to spend their time on."

"You would, wouldn't you?" Marinescu handed Alex a business card. He didn't even try to be discreet. "If you decide you find your current situation a little too restrictive, we're always looking to hire."

There really wasn't any polite, safe way to handle that. Refusing would be impolite. Accepting might send the wrong signal. Alex settled for his tried and true solution to a lot of things – sarcasm. "A sound beating from Yassen?" he replied and accepted the card. "Thank you, that was just what I wanted."

Marinescu barked a laugh. It sounded as rough as his voice did. "Thought so. Didn't hurt to try. See you around, Orion. I'm off to suck up to the less pretty Dr Graff. Lead the way, Cossack. Might as well get this over with."

He glanced at his two assistants. "Make sure everything is in order, would you?"

With that order, he followed Yassen up to the compound, Alex and the two assistants still on the pier. For the representatives of two competing freelance terrorist organisations, they seemed to get on remarkably well. Yassen hadn't seemed overly annoyed, anyway.

One of the assistants sighed. The other looked just resigned. Alex recognised the look of people who were used to the people they were responsible for doing stupid things. If that was how Marinescu usually acted, he really didn't blame them.

He paused. Noticed the fact that Yassen hadn't given him any orders one way or another and sighed as well. Maybe it was a test to see what he would do. Stick around and see if he could get information, or follow along to the compound as security.

Alex stared at the retreating figures. Glanced at the two assistants. Sighed again.

"If you need a hand hooking everything up to the utilities, wave down someone from security and they'll get a hold of someone," he said, and then headed back up to the main building as well for another long wait as the Graffs and Marinescu got the social niceties out of the way.

Security, shooting instructor, and babysitter. Maybe Malagosto needed to add some extra classes.

* * *

The rain started at two in the afternoon, almost on the dot. It stopped again barely past three. Two more of Graff's potential customers arrived shortly after, within fifteen minutes of each other. Alex was almost sure someone had timed it with the weather to avoid getting those terribly important guests wet. An umbrella might clash with their style.

Maybe Alex was a little spiteful. He figured he had the right to be, everything considered. He was sweaty and miserable. The ballistic vest seemed to trap all heat and sweat under it, and where that one didn't cover, the uniform did much the same thing. The tiny headset curled around his left ear itched like nobody's business. Drops of sweat ran down his neck to get soaked up by the fabric. Alex doubted it would be worth it to even try to wash the uniform. Might as well just burn it. It would sure make him feel better.

Veldt arrived first. It wasn't his real name but it was the one he went by, and everyone respected that. It was the polite thing to do, and politeness was really in everyone's best interest for the moment. If it hadn't been because of the concerns about Hart, Veldt would have been their biggest worry, hands down. It wasn't even that the man was that bad compared to SCORPIA, Alex knew that. SCORPIA had engineered terrorist attacks that had killed just as many as Veldt's had. If Operation Invisible Sword had succeeded, it would have delegated Veldt's body-count to a toddler's tantrum.

They simply had very different philosophies. SCORPIA saw it as business. Veldt considered it an art and a deeply personal thing. Veldt disliked SCORPIA for their purely business approach and utter lack of concern about who hired them. SCORPIA disliked Veldt's personal approach to things, an approach that made him very hard to reason with.

It was unlikely to come to violence but Veldt would not be a happy man. Yassen Gregorovich was everything the man despised – cold, emotionless, utterly amoral, and with his skills available to the highest bidder, no questions asked. Veldt was known to pick and choose his employers and had occasionally even worked for free.

Alex imagined SCORPIA's reaction to that kind of work philosophy and was reminded more than anything of a proper Victorian lady overcome by the vapours.

Alex snorted quietly to himself.

Working for free. The audacity of it.

Yassen glanced at him and Alex dug out his professional attitude again. He was tired, and despite the number of dangerous, unpleasant people around, he was bored. Though he was kind of okay with that. It was better than things getting a little too exciting.

Veldt was the youngest of the visitors. The man that appeared from the chopper was only in his mid-thirties, right around Yassen's age. He was Dutch by birth but had the same harsh, dark tan as Klaus back at Malagosto. The sort of tan that spoke of long periods of time under a merciless sun.

His expression hardened at the sight of Yassen and he greeted them in Arabic, probably just to make a point. Yassen spoke excellent Arabic and didn't mind. Alex could follow along decently but he knew he missed out on a lot of the underlying things and subtle insults.

" _Gregorovich. I suppose they have the money to spare for it."_

" _Veldt. I trust you managed to arrive without incident."_

Veldt's expression hardened. Alex remembered a note in the file that the man had almost been killed once when the helicopter he had been in had been shot down by military forces. Yassen could be a surprisingly petty man when he wanted to.

" _Yes. I trust you and your dog will have done your job well enough that this will remain the case when I leave as well."_

'Your dog'. Alex would have been insulted if he hadn't stopped caring entirely right around the time the rain started.

Petty insults over with, the two of them settled for mutual silence as they made their way to the main building. With the second chopper already on the way in, Alex stayed behind to play host.

Veldt's pilot took off again briefly to settle down a bit further away, near Sahu's chopper and a bit out of the way. Alex wondered if all billionaires had that as a requirement for their home. A parking lot for the cars, and a second one for their choppers. Some people had too much money.

Ruge's chopper appeared five minutes later and landed with perfect precision on the large, white 'H' that marked the helipad.

Ruge was Marinescu's age – late forties – and fit. Not particular tall, but with plenty of visible muscles. Unlike Sahu, Ruge was definitely not just a negotiator. If he was, Alex would bet good money most of those 'negotiations' were helped along by a lot of violence and assorted weaponry.

Both of his bodyguards looked every bit as fit and competent as their boss, just two decades younger.

Alex wondered if the chopper had air conditioning. Ruge looked perfectly comfortable in his suit. He was a little envious.

"Sir, welcome to Santa Catarina Island," Alex greeted respectfully when they reached him. "I'm Alex Rider, part of security for the duration of your visit."

Ruge nodded. "Hunter's boy." Dark eyes watched him carefully, taking in his appearance. "You look like him, as I'm sure you've been told. I didn't know him but I knew of him. Damn shame what happened. You make sure the same doesn't happen to you. You have quite a reputation already, and I want to see what Cossack can do with five years and that sort of potential."

"I'll try, sir," Alex agreed dryly.

Ruge smiled faintly and handed Alex two business cards. "If you find yourself with a little time on the side, a couple of my clients have expressed an interest in your skills."

Alex accepted the cards, if just out of basic politeness. He would probably give them to Yassen later.

"I'm currently bound to a five-year exclusive contract with SCORPIA, sir," Alex replied and managed to sound a little apologetic. "All business arrangements must go through them."

"Standard for a new graduate. I expected as much," Ruge agreed and shrugged. "But ..."

He trailed off. Alex could fill in the rest of that sentence just fine. _Whatever the client wants._ Some parts of the criminal world were amazingly good at customer service. MI6 should take notes.

The walk to the compound was taken up with safe, light conversation that stayed clear of potentially dangerous topics with practised ease. Ruge was a possible threat, Ruge and his bodyguards, but Alex couldn't help but like him. Just a little. A lot of it was solid training and experience with social skills, but even then … he was pleasant company and downright friendly when he wanted to be.

Sometimes, Alex though, life had been a lot easier when all the bad guys had been genuinely unpleasant types.

* * *

Several hours later, in the early evening, the final potential customer arrived. The _Boudicca_ settled easily on the other side of the floating pier across from the _Victory._ With it came Hart – and so did Ben Daniels.

* * *

Yassen and Alex had spent a good while deciding on the best approach when it came to Daniels, since locking him up or plain shooting him wasn't on the table.

Heavy surveillance was a given, of course, of Daniels and Hart and the rest of the crew of the _Boudicca_. Yassen had gone as far as to contact SCORPIA with the problem that Hart presented. The response was clear. SCORPIA valued Hart's connections. They'd had a profitable partnership on several occasions. Compromised or not, Hart was not to be harmed.

In the end, Yassen had decided to give Daniels a slight weakness to exploit. It probably wouldn't work, not if he was actually an intelligence agent with all the paranoia that implied, but Yassen had decided it was worth a try, anyway.

Yassen would focus on Hart and leave Alex with the opportunity to deal with Daniels alone. Shift their body language and interactions just a little. Make Yassen more intimidating, colder, more lethal, even with Alex. Make Alex less of an equal partner and more the student with a merciless instructor. Make Alex the weak spot and see if Daniels tried to go for it.

Of the two men that appeared from the _Boudicca,_ both were familiar to Alex. Hart from the file and Daniels from personal experience.

Hart was sixty, grey-haired, well-dressed, and surprisingly handsome, even Alex could tell that much. He was … classy, that was the word Alex had been looking for. The very image of an upper-class gentleman. The image was ruined a little by the file on him that Alex had read, detailing a number of gruesome murders at his hand. Hart's favourite way to make a point.

Alex stayed behind on the beach as Yassen walked to the end of the pier and greeted the last visitor on the list. They exchanged words, too low for Alex to hear from that distance, but there was no hostility in their body language.

He could see the exact moment that Daniels looked over and recognition set in. The slight frown as he tried to work out just why Alex was familiar and the realisation when it clicked.

Yassen and Hart finished their brief conversation. Hart summoned one of the crew with a snap of his fingers. Alex couldn't hear that conversation, either, but it looked like a series of last-minute instructions. The crew of the _Boudicca_ politely ignored the other large yacht right across from them. The crew of the _Victory_ seemed happy to do the same in return.

Instructions over with, Yassen and Hart headed back down the pier, towards the main building together, Daniels two steps behind them. The motion seemed like instinct. After seven months working for the man, Alex supposed it would be.

Alex watched carefully as the three of them approached. Fox looked a little different than when Alex had last seen him, but that was no surprise. More at ease. Cleaner and a lot less stressed. His clothes looked perfectly normal, too. Alex wondered if he had any of Smithers' gadgets hidden on him, if he was MI6 like they suspected. Bugs, hidden explosives, tranquilliser guns … if he did, Alex couldn't tell, but that was sort of the point. He was also young. Alex hadn't thought about it at Brecon, but Fox was younger than a lot of the people around Alex these days. Early twenties. Younger than all of SCORPIA's people on the island save for Alex. He would have been the third-youngest, if he had been in Alex's Malagosto class. Samuel had been twenty. Everyone else had been mid-twenties and up.

Hart was still talking, even if Alex couldn't quite hear the words. He seemed comfortable enough around Yassen. Everyone seemed to know each other on sight, even if by nothing more than reputation.

When Hart and Yassen reached him, Alex honestly wasn't surprised to find himself included in that count. It seemed like everyone knew him.

Hart looked from Alex to Yassen and back again. "This must be Rider's son. He can't be anything else."

Yassen nodded slightly. "Alex Rider, Jeremiah Hart. Hart, Alex Rider. Hunter's son."

Hart nodded slowly. "You look like your father. I never met him but I certainly knew of him. Dreadful business with Albert Bridge. Never trust an intelligence agency, I say, and MI6 is about the worst of a bad lot. Good to see that Gregorovich found you before they ruined your potential completely."

"I don't think MI6 agrees with that," Alex said, his mouth a little too fast for his brain. At least Hart just laughed.

"I'd say! A Malagosto graduate at your age? Quite prodigious, son." Hart gave Yassen a pointed look. "Make sure your employers take good care of him. There are quite a lot of people who would be delighted to steal him away."

Alex decided there and then that if Hart gave him a business card, too, he wouldn't be held responsible for his reaction.

Daniels never spoke, neither of them giving any indication that they knew each other. They both had a job to do, and there was something to be said for professionalism, especially in a situation with that many dangerous people around.

Yassen was not big on small talk, but Hart obviously had no problem filling out the silence on the walk to the main buildings, nor did he have any problems with small talk with the Graffs. He was social and charming, or at the very least he could play the role like a natural, and it felt like forever to Alex before they finally wound down enough that Hart waved off Daniels and vanished with Iohannes Graff for a tour of the place.

Because why not, Alex accepted with tired resignation. Give the possibly-compromised visitor a tour, of course. Why not show him the lab and all the exits while he was at it?

A glance from Yassen sent one of SCORPIA's guards following the two at a polite distance. It wasn't the intimidating presence of Yassen – Alex knew enough to see that for the faux pas it would have been, now that Hart had left his bodyguard behind – but it was someone to keep an eye on them, at least.

Daniels looked just as resigned as Alex felt. Then he looked over, met Alex's eyes, and seemed to have a moment of indecision before he crossed the last, few steps between them.

Both stayed silent, not entirely sure how to handle it. It felt awkward for Alex, and he couldn't imagine it was any less so for Daniels. The last time they had met, Fox had been potential SAS and Alex had been … well, who knew what they thought he'd been. Now, the uniform left little doubt about Alex's status in the international intelligence community.

"Cub," the man finally said.

"Fox," Alex replied.

Silence. "... Ben Daniels, but you probably already knew that." He held out his hand.

Alex hesitated for a second before he took it. "Alex Rider."

If Daniels was uncomfortable with Alex there, it didn't show. He didn't look like he was about to ask Alex's age or why he was there. Either he already knew through MI6 or he planned to look up Alex on his own later.

Daniels' eyes did linger briefly on the scorpion on Alex's uniform.

"SCORPIA? Really?" he asked dryly.

"Hart?" Alex shot back. " _Really?_ "

Daniels gave a wry smile. "Point. A good reference will open a lot of doors, though. I know it's probably not a problem when you're part of an organisation, but it's a little different when you're freelance. He's a pretty decent boss."

Silence settled again, heavy and awkward. Alex wondered if he should ask. Then again, he was there as security and Daniels was suspected MI6. Being an insensitive bastard was what SCORPIA paid him for.

There was no polite way to put it, so he settled for bluntness. "Last I saw you, you looked like a shoe-in for the SAS."

"Injury." If Daniels had any bitterness about that, it didn't show. Alex waited long seconds. Finally the man sighed. "I worked all right in teams but not well enough for them. Before they let me go, they told me to think about if I really wanted to try again. Good enough?"

Alex shrugged. "We didn't get that well along but you looked like a decent team. I know the fail rate is bad, I was just surprised."

Daniels shook his head. "Says the SCORPIA-trained kid we thought was some rich guy's unruly brat sent off to be taught a lesson."

"... Point," Alex admitted. "And I wasn't SCORPIA back then."

There was some emotion in Daniels' eyes that Alex couldn't decipher. "Got a better offer?"

"Something like that."

Alex didn't hear Yassen's footsteps behind him but he saw Daniels' attention shift and the sudden, slight tension in his body. It didn't tell him anything new. Most people familiar with Yassen Gregorovich's reputation would have reacted like that.

"Alex?" Yassen's voice was emotionless but for a slight chill to it.

Alex shifted slightly to look at him. "Sir. Ben Daniels, Hart's bodyguard. We spent a while at SAS training together. Daniels, Yassen Gregorovich. My boss and mentor."

"And partner," Yassen added mildly. "You are a graduate of Malagosto, after all."

Cool blue eyes watched Daniels carefully. The man didn't shift under the stare but Alex could see the tension in his muscles. Yassen's focus returned to Alex and Daniels' stance eased just a little.

"Will this be a problem?"

A nice little game, since Yassen already knew every single detail about Alex's past with MI6. Alex wondered if Daniels would believe it.

"No, sir," he responded. "It won't. It was ten days and they hated me just as much as I hated them."

"Good." Yassen's tone, all icy finality, promised dire consequences if that response should turn out to be a lie. One last glance at Daniels and the man left the two of them alone again.

Daniels let out a slow, relieved breath. "Mentor?"

Alex shrugged. "My father trained him. He gave me the same offer he got. I wasn't about to turn down an apprenticeship with Yassen Gregorovich."

"I suppose not," Daniels agreed. For another long, awkward second neither spoke, then he continued. "And for the record, we didn't hate you."

Alex snorted, lingering bitterness welling up. He thought he had put his time in MI6 mostly behind him. Apparently not. "Wolf certainly did a good impression, and the rest of you weren't much better. Did it help, harassing a fourteen-year-old?"

Maybe he was being a little unreasonable. He really couldn't bring himself to care.

Daniels sighed, just slightly. "Point. Still, for what it's worth, we didn't hate you."

Alex raise an eyebrow. "Do you _want_ me to tell him you could be a problem?" He didn't need to specify the 'him' in question.

"I'd rather you didn't, if it's all the same to you." A glint of humour. Sardonic and subtle, but a bit of the human beneath the soldier. Alex didn't want to listen to it.

"Whatever," he said, because sometimes there were advantages to being a teenager. "Stay out of my way, and I'll stay out of yours. Clear?"

Daniels' expression was unreadable. Then he nodded. "Clear."

Alex left Daniels to his business. Took a slow breath. There was still a casual dinner to get through for the night, but the worst was over for the day. Arrivals had been handled and no one had been an immediate problem. One problem down, quite a few more to go.

* * *

Dinner was at ten that night. Alex took the time beforehand to go through security one last time and check in on Johann and Hanna. Johann was fast asleep. Hanna had closed the door to her room the moment the first chopper had arrived, and she hadn't opened it since. Guérin had arranged for food to be delivered, and Marcus had arranged for someone to stand guard by the glass doors that connected their rooms to the gardens. Between the two of them, Alex felt reasonably sure things were in order.

He also took the extra bit of time to change into a uniform that wasn't completely soaked through by sweat and humidity before he went back to the compound to babysit his somewhat bigger charges.

There were people stationed where they could keep an eye on the three massive yachts. There were people stationed in the guest wing of the compound, and additional guards watching the massive, formal dining room. That wasn't counting the security their visitors had brought, either.

There were eight people gathered around the massive table; six guests and their two hosts. There were twice as many people watching very carefully from strategic positions around the room, all of them geared up. Alex had a whole new appreciation for the Graffs' air conditioning. For the first time all day, he was actually comfortably in his uniform. Air conditioning was a lot less comfortable when you spent forty-five minutes standing around in a sweat-soaked uniform under the vents. If he got sick from that, he would never live it down.

Alex had expected the whole room to be thick with tension. Surprisingly, it wasn't. Maybe it was because people were there as potential customers, not competitors. Maybe it was because their respective organisations and clients had deliberately picked someone who could represent them in a professional manner.

Maybe it was simply the sheer amount of armed, dangerous people in the room. Any attempt at causing trouble was suicide.

The dinner dragged on until well past midnight and felt even longer. Probably not to Alex's eight charges who seemed to enjoy themselves, but Alex was sure he wasn't the only person on security duty who would much rather want their charge in bed so they could get some sleep as well.

Alex had glanced over at Daniels several times. The man had the perfect, professional mask down pat. He was probably bored out of his skull, too, but showed no sign of it. Like Alex, he would probably take boredom over actual trouble any day.

Alex had caught himself staring at Yassen several times, too. The man was still very visibly SCORPIA's top operative and a lethal weapon in his own right, but for the moment he was … social. His body language seemed downright pleasant once or twice. It was a weird feeling, seeing Yassen play the business game, seemingly unconcerned about security. Weird and unnerving.

Yassen trusted Alex to do his job. Right there and then, Yassen had other, equally important orders – because SCORPIA ran their organisation like what it was, an actual business – and business contacts of that calibre were valuable. Right there and then, Alex might have the experience of a number of competent people to back him, but in the end the full responsibility rested on his shoulders.

Yassen trusted Alex to do his job. Alex didn't doubt that Yassen remained aware of his surroundings at all times, but he still trusted Alex to watch his back and keep anything from blowing up.

In the end, everything went well. No one caused trouble. No one got into any obvious arguments. None of the guards had to as much as lift a finger.

The party broke up at one. Once all the guests were safely back in their accommodations, Alex spent close to an hour discussing security with Yassen and Ivan. Neither of them seemed that bothered by the brutal schedule. By that point, Alex was too tired to feel envious.

He collapsed in bed well past two that night. Set his alarm for dawn. Curled up and was asleep within seconds.

One day down. Two to go.

* * *

Next: Show and tell for terrorists.


	29. Show and Tell

A/N: Warnings for canon (Skeleton Key) levels of violence.

Andrei: There is one cliffhanger planned, but that's some chapters down the line.

* * *

Breakfast was awkward. Dinner the night before had been easier somehow, all casual and social and full of whatever networking INTERPOL's most wanted did when they met up. Fostering business connections, probably. Even Yassen had been social, probably on SCORPIA's order. Well, social in Yassen-terms, anyway.

Breakfast was … odd. There was something quiet and homey about breakfast in a way that didn't at all go well with six influential, well-connected people – most of them cold-blooded killers, too – and the security they had brought with them.

With Yassen's role as SCORPIA's representative, the full responsibility for island security fell on Alex's shoulders.

No pressure, he decided. No pressure at all. Just a bunch of highly-trained killers, a potential intelligence agent, one potentially-compromised client, and enough high-strung nerves to set off World War III by sneezing at the wrong time.

Ivan went by John for the day. He would be present for Hanna's introductions to her parents' 'business associates', and she seemed to take a lot better to the man's British cover than the Russian one. Possibly the Russian accent reminded her just a little too much of the slight lilt that had been present in Yassen's voice during their first introduction. John's personality seemed … nicer, too. More pleasant than Ivan's, for all that they were the same human being. It was a little unsettling to see the man shift personalities so easily. Like Crux, he could become an entirely different person, and Alex doubted that either of the two personalities were the real one.

Whatever his identity, the man had competence and experience on his side, and Alex relied on that now. He couldn't be everywhere at once, and he had enough to keep track of as it was.

Alex had been more relieved than he cared to admit that Samantha had made do with arranging meetings with just Sahu and Marinescu. With introductions to the largest two freelance terrorist organisation on the planet and one of the best negotiators familiar with that world, she clearly intended to give her daughter a solid foundation for future interactions.

It could have been worse, Alex admitted. Sahu was not a danger to her, and Marinescu was a professional. A killer, sure, but a professional used to dealing with potential clients. At least it wasn't Veldt. Ruge and Hart would have been safe as well, professionals both of them, but she was a lot less likely to ever need to know the sort of people who could supply weaponry and entire armies to use it. If she ever did, SCORPIA and Glaive both had the contacts for that as well.

Hanna handled them far better than the meeting with Yassen, too. Maybe it was because she knew and trusted Alex by now and had him right by her side as protection and support. Maybe it was because she knew John was right by the door, watching the whole thing with sharp eyes. Maybe she had grown used to being around people in that line of work now. Maybe they were simply that much less intimidating than Yassen.

Sahu, at least, was kind and polite, perfectly friendly, and not a threat at all. Marinescu was, but he was also human in a way that Yassen frequently wasn't. He didn't have the emotionless coldness to him, and he had the sense of humour that Yassen mostly lacked as well.

Hanna Graff was perfectly polite and well-mannered, calm and quiet and everything most teenagers usually weren't. She didn't have her mother's charm or confidence, but she managed quite well nonetheless. Like Alex, she acted older than her years; a maturity forced by trauma and upbringing. He didn't doubt her mother had given her additional instructions after the meeting with Yassen, either.

Hanna Graff didn't want to be there, Alex knew that much, but she listened attentively when they spoke and didn't ask any potentially problematic questions. She had obviously learned that lesson from her meeting with Yassen as well. Don't ask questions unless you're sure you want to know the answer.

She left the meetings with two business cards and a further introduction to the sort of world that her mother navigated with ease.

Alex followed her back to her room. She didn't speak for a long time.

"They were both very polite. Mr Gregorovich, too," she finally said.

"You're a potential client. A wealthy one," Alex said. "They understand good business relationships and they've probably all worked with weirder clients than a teenage girl."

Silence. There was no one in the hallway. Just the two of them and the faint sounds of the world outside. Hanna didn't speak again until they reached her room. "You're good at this. Security," she added. "Working within mother's … restrictions."

Alex shrugged a little. "I try my best. It's what SCORPIA trained me for and they don't really take kindly to failure."

She nodded and opened the door but paused in the doorway. "... They must have found you very young," she said softly.

"Fourteen." Alex waited a heartbeat but wanted to explain, just a little. "I knew what I agreed to. It was better than the alternatives."

There was something in her eyes that looked like pity. He couldn't allow it to stay there, not if she was going to be surrounded by that sort of people in the future. Not with Samantha Graff's plans for her children.

"Pity will get you killed, Miss Graff," he said, as brutally honest as Yassen had been during that first introduction. "I was not made Mr Gregorovich's second in command because he's my mentor. I'm the youngest assassin SCORPIA has ever trained. My graduation assignment was the murder of an MI6 agent. I signed that contract knowing the terms and the type of jobs I would be given, and I did it because it would give me the best chances of survival. Every time you feel pity for me, look at Mr Gregorovich and remember I went through the exact same sort of training. That pity for a harmless, innocent fifteen-year-old boy is what makes me so very good at getting close to my targets and why SCORPIA charges so much for me."

How much, he wasn't sure. He wasn't comfortable knowing, and so Yassen handled that side of things for now. He knew it was a short reprieve. Sooner or later, Yassen would insist he handled that part of it himself as well. All Alex knew was that he would likely have paid off his full debt from Malagosto by the end of the year, and that alone told him plenty about just what their assignments paid – and how much SCORPIA probably charged in turn.

Something in Hanna's eyes hardened at the reminder. Of his actual job, or the sort of world she had just become a part of, or his tone of voice, he didn't know. It was better than pity, anyway. Less likely to get her killed.

"So be suspicious of everyone? That must be a very lonely way to live." Spiteful and angry. She definitely hadn't appreciated the reminder. Alex couldn't bring himself to care in the least.

"Would you prefer being dead and leave Johann with no one to protect him? I've seen a thirteen-year-old killed because his father got tangled up with the wrong people and he became a loose end. Your age isn't going to matter a damn thing to most of these people. Most of them wouldn't even hesitate to order Johann dead if he got in their way, and I know a number of operatives who would carry out that order without blinking."

Nile was just the first on a long list of them. Alex didn't want to think about who had handled the 'traffic accident' that had killed Jacob and Evelyn in Singapore. It couldn't have been Nile, but Crux had handled clean-up. SCORPIA had a broad definition of 'clean-up' sometimes. Maybe some of SCORPIA's local people had done it. That was a possibility, too.

Alex pushed the thought aside again. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to know.

"And you?" In that moment Hanna's expression was as cold and unreadable as her mother's when the benign façade fell away.

Alex met her look without flinching. "I don't kill children. SCORPIA isn't impressed but they've indulged me so far. I'll probably have another year or two before that tolerance runs out."

He didn't doubt it was true, and he would just have to deal with the consequences when he refused. He still put some heavy insinuations as to the contrary in his words. It wasn't kind, but if that was the kind of wake-up call she needed, well, Alex got paid to keep her safe. Not to be her friend.

Hanna nodded once, sharply. "Thank you, Mr Rider. I won't keep you from your duties any longer."

Definitely not happy. Not Alex's problem, and if it got the point across, it was a price he was willing to pay. He nodded slightly in return. "Ma'am."

The door to Hanna's room closed with a soft but pointed sound. Alex mentally ran through his schedule for the day, ticked off one more entry on the long list of them, and then left the same way he had arrived, down the hallways and back to his security duties.

* * *

The demonstration had been arranged for right after lunch. Whatever else the Graffs might be, they were the perfect hosts, and their guests seemed to genuinely enjoy the chance to talk shop. Alex couldn't imagine it was all that often most of them met – if ever – and much less in a fairly large group in a safe location.

Ben Daniels behaved like the perfect bodyguard all morning. Silent, unobtrusive, and never more than a few feet from his charge. He hadn't done anything suspicious. He had spoken only when spoken to first. That just made Alex all the twitchier. He obviously wasn't the only one.

"Can we search his cabin?" Adams asked quietly right before lunch, when Alex was tired and hungry and annoyed. He strongly suspected the timing had been intentional; right when he was most likely to agree.

"Not with the _Boudicca's_ level of security. Plus, it'll annoy our client," Alex added the last bit almost as an afterthought.

"MI6 has some of the best surveillance around. Maybe even good enough to work around our stuff."

"I know." The best surveillance around … when they bothered to listen to it, anyway, Alex added mentally, just a little bitter.

"He could be carrying some."

"I know." There were scanners embedded in the doorway. Daniels had gone through without an issue. He had been armed, of course, but all of them were. The number of things he could have hidden in those weapons …

"We could put him through a cavity search," Adams offered helpfully.

"... Don't tempt me."

It wasn't just Daniels. There hadn't been a single sign that anything was wrong with Hart, either. Alex had never met him before, but everything matched with the thorough profile they had on him. He was charming and social, moved easily between conversations, and seemed to genuinely get along with everyone in the small group, at least to some degree. He had even spent twenty minutes in an animated discussion with Veldt about the virtues and drawbacks of a number of different explosives.

When they weren't busy networking, it seemed they were busy talking other kinds of shop.

There was no attempt to lose the guard that Alex had put on him, no attempt to wander off, no probing questions, nothing.

It made Alex really, really twitchy, and he doubted he was the only one.

The first problem appeared in the middle of lunch. The only warning was several loud, angry words in a language Alex didn't recognise and then Marinescu was on his feet, reaching across the table towards Veldt.

The simultaneous sound of a number of different weapons a heartbeat from firing brought everything to a screeching halt.

For long seconds nobody moved. Marinescu had frozen, his hand halfway to Veldt's throat. Veldt in turn had bared his teeth in a vicious, mocking grin, but it slowly faded as they were both reminded just how many weapons in the room they didn't currently control themselves.

Alex's gun was one of them. He hadn't even thought about it. There had been no time for anything but instinct. Calm one moment, trouble and a gun in his hand the next.

Most of the the weapons were aimed at Marinescu, with a few at Veldt as well from Marinescu's people and a few of SCORPIA's, just for good measure.

Even Graff didn't move, frozen in his seat.

It was Yassen who broke the silence.

"Gentlemen." He managed to pack an impressive amount of unspoken threats into that one word.

Marinescu nodded slightly. Slowly sat back down, careful not to make any sudden movements. "My apologies," he said in his rough voice. "A professional disagreement. We'll save the discussion for … another occasion."

"... Agreed." Veldt's smile was small and full of venom. "My apologies. I overstepped my boundaries."

The silence stretched on. Then Mrs Graff nodded and took another bite of food. Everyone seemed to take that as an unspoken hint, and things slowly returned to normal. Tenser, but even that slowly eased out again. Weapons were lowered. Conversation picked back up. Alex breathed a little easier again.

With everything all right again, at least for now, Alex slowly drifted over to the guard that had been closest to the situation.

"What happened?" he asked quietly.

Sebastian still kept a careful eye on the two, just like Alex did. "Seems that the attack that Marinescu got caught up in two years ago that wrecked his voice was one of Veldt's," he answered just as quietly. "He could be lying, but it sounded pretty legit to me. Marinescu seemed to agree."

Oh, joy. At least Marinescu stayed on the _Victory_ and they wouldn't need to worry about the two somehow getting into an armed argument in the guest wing in the middle of the night. Hopefully. Alex made a note to station extra guards by the _Victory_ and Veldt's suite for the rest of the visit. Just in case.

Alex had dared to hope just a little after how well dinner had gone the night before. Maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't be as much of a clusterfuck as he had feared.

Somewhere out there, Murphy was laughing.

* * *

The various assistants – bodyguards and security – were not welcome at the actual demonstration. Most of them didn't look all that happy about it, but they didn't have much choice but to accept it.

Graff met them in what looked almost like an auditorium; a round addition to one corner of the main building that was all tall, curved windows and a wide view of the sea. It had large, comfortable seats in a half-circle and a table that looked like a very expensive desk in the front. Alex wondered what they normally used it for. Then again, with the sort of money they had, maybe another room didn't really matter when they had an entire island already.

Everyone had been instructed to leave anything electronic outside. Neither the Graffs nor SCORPIA wanted any sort of actual evidence of the demonstration. If Hart carried anything, it would be fried. Daniels would be left outside like the rest of personal security. Beyond the potential clients, only a handful of SCORPIA's people and Alex would be inside the room for the actual presentation.

Alex had left security outside of the room in Marcus and John's capable hands and hand-picked the people he would need himself.

Graff wasn't alone, either. Samantha Graff deliberately stayed out of it – plausible deniability, Alex figured, though that was flimsy at best – but Graff's paper-pushing assistant was there with him. Alex had seen the man on his first day on the island; quiet and always busy with paperwork. The man had never spoken more than a brief word with any of them in the weeks that had passed, and that only if someone addressed him directly.

Guérin was always busy, always in motion. It wasn't until then that Alex realised he didn't even know the male assistant's name.

Quiet. Calm. Unobtrusive. An uncomfortable suspicion settled in Alex.

The man sat silently on a chair by the end of the table. Graff waited in the middle of the room, right where he would be at the centre of everything. Only when everyone were seated and their full attention focused on him did he speak.

"Three years ago, a number of short-sighted people made a mistake. They were members of Graff-Merian's board of directors and suffered from a pitiful lack of vision. We were on the verge of a breakthrough -"

Alex tuned out his voice. He knew what would follow – a fairly long monologue about the man's own genius and vision, probably – and he didn't particular care to listen. He would pay attention if Graff went too far off from Alex's expectations, but until then he would focus on security like he was supposed to.

Alex ignored the science lecture that followed as well. Most of it was well beyond him, anyway. Graff's guests seemed interested enough. Some took notes. Alex wondered if they actually understood what the man was on about or if they just faked it really well. Yassen's expression gave nothing away. Just how much had he picked up over the course of fifteen years in SCORPIA's service?

Alex got the key concepts, though he knew some from their briefing already. Airborne, long-term exposure, susceptible to orders and suggestions. Lethal from too-long exposure was new, as was the fact that the influence remained for months. It wasn't just for however long they were exposed to the drug. It was possibly months, maybe even years after. It was still an issue that it could be hard to target a single person with it, but Graff was certain that a competent client could find a way around that. The drug could be be produced for injection as well but would be more obvious to give to a victim for prolonged periods of time. In its airborne state, it was scentless and invisible.

It had definite limitations. It also had terrifying potential.

"- surviving research subject," Graff mentioned, and Alex's attention snapped back to him. "The previous ones were used to test earlier variations of the drug and did not survive the process."

"Intelligence agents? There have been rumours about unwanted visitors." Ruge frowned slightly as he spoke.

"Two," Graff agreed. "I had numerous other test subjects, of course, but the Russians and the Americans were kind enough to supply me with a guinea pig each. One had been trained enough that he felt his mind start to slip. He killed himself, unfortunately. The other died from the toxic side effects, but his autopsy provided much useful data to work with."

Graff's words were callous and his voice even worse. It was enough to send a chill down Alex's spine. Graff didn't care in the least that the people he had tested the drug on had been human beings. He didn't seem to consider them human at all. They were just test subjects, lab rats to be used and discarded when their usefulness ran out.

"SCORPIA trusts those issues have been resolved to a satisfactory degree." Yassen this time, his words more vaguely ominous statement than actual question.

"Of course." Graff sounded almost affronted before he continued. "He was not the only test subject to die from the toxic effects, and additional research was able to minimise the problem. It remains ultimately fatal for now, but the length of exposure required to kill the subject is now significantly longer than the time needed for the drug to be effective."

"Are there any long-term effects before the lethal state, doctor?" Sahu asked politely. "Any tell-tale signs to warn a victim or those around them?"

Graff made a small gesture. "Headaches are the primary one, a fact of life for most people in a stressful environment. One of those minor things that most will write off and take a painkiller for. A less common one is symptoms of allergies. Congestion, red eyes, fatigue. Also symptoms written off as insignificant by most. Two died of subarachnoid haemorrhage. Unfortunate but expected in the course of research."

Rupture brain aneurysms. Dr Three had been thorough in his lectures. Alex suppressed a shudder. That alone was bad enough. The other symptoms were harmless but a lot worse in their own way for how very innocent they were.

Stress and hay fever. Millions of people had those symptoms at any given time. No one would even think twice about them. Take a pill or two and forget about them. Anyone important enough to use the drug on was probably someone in an important, stressful position. No one would notice if those headaches got a little more common. If the victim got a little more tired than usual.

Alex's palms felt clammy. Maybe it wouldn't be possible to get that sort of drug into the office of someone like the president of Russia or the United States, or the head of an intelligence agency, but there were a lot of important people out there who wouldn't be nearly as well-protected. People with access to terrifying amounts of classified information. To intel about weapons of mass destruction and state secrets. People with enough influence to cause impossible amounts of damage with the right order and the drug-induced incentive to agree without question.

Graff snapped his fingers. His assistant rose obediently from the chair.

"It would, of course, not be a proper demonstration without suitable proof of its effectiveness. This is Leonard Collier, the chairman of Graff-Merian's board. Well, I suppose he was until his helicopter crashed in the Alps with no survivors. It had just taken off … why, with all the fuel on board, there was simply nothing left. They had to use small bits of DNA to pronounce Leonard and his pilot dead."

There had been a note in the background information they had been given that the board had recently had a change in leadership but not the background for it. Alex wondered if SCORPIA had been behind that, too. Maybe Graff himself hadn't arranged it, but his wife would have been delighted to.

The assistant – Collier – didn't move. He didn't even blink. If he understood the words at all, he didn't seem to care. Just how much of that drug had Graff given him?

"I could have used anyone," Graff conceded, "but this way he will be of use to the scientific community at least once in his life."

 _At least in your last minutes you will have been some use to me._

Alex was reminded of Grief's words when he had told Alex about the human dissection he had planned, and he wanted to throw up.

"He has been instructed to answer any question given, except, of course, anything related to the workings of Graff-Merian."

 _Of course._ Alex watched the reactions of the potential clients. There was definite interest in the eyes of several of them. Yassen, of course, was as hard to read as always.

The best way to test the drug's effectiveness would be a number of questions no sane person would be willing to answer, and the more of them – and faster – the better. It would leave little time to make up a lie if it were all a careful act, and with enough questions … if anything wasn't quite right, sooner or later some weakness in the act would show itself.

For a moment no one spoke. Then Ruge nodded thoughtfully.

"Let us start easy, then. Mr Collier, you are a family man of some wealth. This leaves your children under the likely risk of kidnapping. Tell me about your family's security precautions. Leave nothing out."

The question was cold, calculating, and very deliberate. If he cared in the least about his family, he would have kept his mouth shut.

Collier opened his mouth and spoke.

"There have already been two attempted kidnappings," he said agreeably. "Primary security is at home, of course, and remain the responsibility of our security company -"

The interrogation would go on for a full hour without pause. One question followed another, short, cold, and utterly indifferent, and Collier answered all of them without hesitation. By the end of the hour, they knew everything of interest about the man, a good amount of which Alex really hadn't wanted to know.

It could have been a careful act. Given the ease with which the man answered everything from questions about his bank account to the number of mistresses he'd had, Alex doubted it. If the man were an actor, he would have had to learn a whole life and make up convincing enough lies on the spot for the rest of it. Lie that were good enough not to get contradicted by something else.

Finally the interrogation fell silent. Collier hadn't moved from his spot.

"It looks impressive, and he looks very convincing, but all of that can still be faked," Marinescu concluded roughly and voiced what most of them had probably considered already. "Halfway decent intel and a good enough actor, and you can fake most things."

"Indeed it can," Graff agreed. He didn't even sound surprised. "With good plastic surgery and sufficient training, you can take over someone's life with ease."

Alex swallowed hard at the reminder of Grief's plot, but he didn't allow himself to react in any other way.

Graff turned to Collier. Brought out a gun from underneath his jacket and handed it to the man. Alex felt a foreboding chill. "We have one more demonstration to go through. You know what to do."

The man nodded agreeably. In that moment, Alex knew.

He looked away the instant Collier picked up the gun. A single gunshot followed a second later, thunderous in the large room. Alex had a clear view of the potential clients and not one of them even flinched. A few made notes. Most looked approving. Impressed.

Graff basked in the approval.

Alex remembered Sarov and the spreading pool of blood and felt sick. That was what the drug could do, then. In a strong enough dose, for a long enough period of time … every secret laid bare, your very will subverted. Graff had told the man to kill himself and he had done so with no hesitation. None at all.

A slight gesture from Yassen saw two of the guards approach and drag away the body. When Alex could stall no longer and finally looked back, only the bloodstain was left, followed by the smeared streak of dark red where the body had been moved.

Graff started to talk again. Alex saw his lips moving but he didn't hear the words. Just the odd feeling of pressure and cotton in his ear, and the memories of cold dampness and rust in Murmansk. It had smelled metallic, he remembered distantly. Like blood.

SCORPIA would love a drug like that. _Everyone_ would love a drug like that. It was bad enough now, and with Graff still improving it bit by bit …

Alex had to stop it. He had to stop it, and he had no idea how. Daniels? They still didn't know for sure if he were even MI6. The CIA? Alex wouldn't even know how to get the information to them. An anonymous email would have been easy if it hadn't been for the fact that the entire island was under surveillance lockdown, and Alex didn't feel like testing his ability to get around that without drawing Yassen's or Adams' attention. Not to mention what would happen if SCORPIA had agents with the CIA.

Alex would have to wait, then. Until he was clear of island security again or until the heavy-duty security measures weren't required anymore.

It wasn't just whatever drug was hidden away in the lab; it was wherever proper production would take place and not just the research part of it. It was lab results, research, endless amounts of development …

It had to be stopped. Everything had to be taken out. That included the island. Maybe the research was backed up somewhere, but Graff wasn't the type for it. He would want it close, where he could keep tight control of it.

If the island got targeted, and targeted successfully, SCORPIA would be blamed for the failure. Alex and Yassen at the very least.

If the whole operation went bad enough to stop Graff completely, Alex was dead and probably a number of their people with him. They would probably let Yassen live, but he would very likely have condemned Sagitta and any number of the guards. Unless he took full responsibility. They were still useful and had only followed orders.

If Alex took full responsibility for the fuck-up -

\- Maybe. Possibly. And just as likely not, because Alex didn't have the first idea of how the board would react to failure like that. How far the blame would reach.

Alex found himself desperately hoping that Daniels really was MI6. That his suspicions had been right. Except Alex had no way to know. Was he going to take the chance and hope that Daniels had somehow managed to find out everything in mere days and while under constant surveillance? Including the bits and pieces Alex had managed to pick up on accident, just by being around the Graffs for so many hours of the day?

What could he even do? It wasn't like Daniels would admit to anything, and if Alex gave him the information … if Daniels _wasn't_ an agent, Alex would be dead. Even if he handed over the intel unseen, someone would do the maths. There weren't all that many people on the island with access to that sort of information.

If Daniels was an agent, Alex had to hope the man had it under control. He couldn't do anything else. If he _weren't_ … Alex could do nothing. Hand over the intel and bring SCORPIA's attention down on his own head? He would be dead and Graff nowhere closer to being stopped.

Wait, then. Contact the CIA, or possibly the Russians, since they'd both had an agent on the island and were already suspicious. Hope he could do it unnoticed and fast enough that they would be able to stop the whole plan and then … deal with the consequences. One way or another.

His summon to Dubai had been a message. The board was still watching him. If anything happened, even after SCORPIA had left, Alex would be the immediate suspect.

Maybe he could find a way to do it that wouldn't immediately get him marked as the source. Maybe he would be able to time it for right after they left the island themselves and hope it wasn't too late by then. Maybe someone even had assets in the area already and would be able to move fast. Alex could hope so, anyway.

He thought of Johann and Hanna in the middle of it all, of the island attacked by special forces, and felt bile in his mouth.

They had nothing to do with it. They were innocent. Hanna, maybe, slightly, but even that was definitely not of her own choice. They had no idea of what was going on, and they would get a brutal wake-up call when it all collapsed. At best they would have their mother left. Iohannes Graff would never see the light of day again, if he even survived an attack like that. Depending on the amount of evidence around, Samantha Graff's future freedom and survival would be a big maybe, too.

Worst case, they would be orphans. Parents dead or imprisoned for the sort of crimes that didn't even make it to a proper trial, their financial resources gone, the rest of their family dead -

\- they would have no one. They would end up in the system, like MI6 had threatened to do to Alex.

Really worst case, Alex realised, someone would consider them a loose end – some potential customer or another, and not necessarily just one of the representatives – and simply have them killed.

Was that the choice Blunt and Jones had made when they had blackmailed him into MI6's service? Looked at the risks and decided that the death of one child was an acceptable price to pay to gain information about a potentially deadly plot?

Even if he found a way to pass on the information that wouldn't end with his own death – him and potentially a number of his people – he would still destroy everything that Johann and Hanna had ever known. Knowingly destroy their lives to stop their father's plans.

It was one thing to do it knowing he might be signing his own death warrant. It was something else entirely to know he might do the same for Johann and Hanna in the process. He had let Jacob die in Singapore. Would that be the price of stopping Graff? Another two dead children on his conscience?

The drug would still be out there to a degree, he wasn't that naïve, but at least the damage would be contained. Whoever ended up stopping it, MI6, the CIA, whoever, they would undoubtedly keep at least some of the research. It was still a better option than having it out there in the world, available to anyone who could pay, and Alex had no chance to stop it on his own. None at all.

No one had stopped Cray. SCORPIA had known and done nothing. This was a drug and not technically a weapon of mass destruction, but Alex knew it could easily become one. Drug the right people, give the right orders, and Damian Cray's actions would pale in comparison.

It had to be stopped. Alex knew the likely price of that. The only thing that remained was to find a way to do it that wouldn't put anyone else in the line of fire. It wouldn't take down SCORPIA but he had to do something. Anything.

Up by the large desk, Graff's lips had stopped moving. Alex forced himself to pay attention again as people rose from their seats and the low murmur of voices filled the room. The sense of cotton in his ears was still there. The smell of blood still lingered but no one seemed to care. No one but Alex.

The doors opened. The small group left the room, out to where their twitchy security people were waiting, talking all the while. The general mood seemed to be pleased. Pleasantly surprised by the demonstration. Graff would have customers for his drug, Alex didn't doubt that.

No one looked twice at the large, red stain on the floor.

* * *

With the successful demonstration of the drug out of the way, dinner that night became more a cheerful networking and business opportunity than anything. Well, cheerful to most. Alex could have done just fine without it.

There were good moods and smiles all around, Alex noticed. Even Yassen was marginally agreeable, probably because SCORPIA expected him to be social and represent them. They were careful to keep Veldt and Marinescu away from each other, but even the two of them seemed willing to ignore their disagreement for the evening. Expensive alcohol flowed freely, though Alex knew better than to expect any of the guests to drink enough not to be able to act immediately if they had to, professional security or not. At least Hanna Graff hadn't been invited for that part of it. Alex knew she had been relieved to learn that.

It was weird and a little unnerving whenever he remembered just how much power and influence that small group wielded. Once they got their hands on a decent supply of Graff's drug, it would take a day or two at the most to distribute it to their own hand-picked customers around the world.

One day, and any number of dictatorships, intelligence agencies, governments, high-end terrorist organisations – anyone with enough money to pay – would be in possession of a drug that could control someone so thoroughly that there was no defence against it. Prolonged exposure was highly toxic, but by that point it would already be too late.

Alex remembered the wide smear of blood on the pristine wooden floor and felt his nausea reappear.

Yassen hadn't been bothered; none of them had. And why would they be? All of them had probably seen people killed in a lot more brutal ways, if not outright carried it out themselves. Sure, it could be used against them as well, but all weapons could, and all of them were exceptionally well-protected just by virtue of the people they represented. An attack on Yassen or Marinescu or Veldt wouldn't just be an attack on an extremely dangerous person. It would be an attack on the organisation they represented, too, and none of them were known to be forgiving.

None of them cared. It was one more dead person out of the hundreds they had already seen. That was what SCORPIA expected of him, Alex knew with horrible certainty. Maybe not right now, because even the board knew he was very young for that line of work, but soon enough. The same cold ruthlessness.

Alex tried to keep his full focus on his job and the security arrangements but his thoughts still drifted sometimes and never to anywhere good.

Whenever they did, he forced himself to focus on the clients instead. On the security people. On the dynamics around them. Anything to give him a distraction.

At one point Alex spotted Hart in the middle of an enthusiastic discussion with Ruge. He drifted a little closer and spotted Marcus within hearing range of the two. He wasn't the only one that kept a close eye on Hart.

"What are they talking about?" Alex asked quietly.

"Nerve agents," Marcus said dryly. "Apparently they have a common interest."

Of course they did. Alex almost regretted asking.

The social get-together continued well past midnight again. Alex was exhausted, mentally and physically. Yassen knew. Alex knew that Yassen knew. Neither said anything. Both had a job to do, and both were well aware that the board still paid attention to Alex. His summons to Dubai had made that abundantly clear.

Alex couldn't afford to mess up. He still wondered if it really mattered when he had already accepted that he would need to stop that drug in any way he could. Kurst seemed to have been made his unofficial handler. The man didn't like him in the least and seemed to only grudgingly accept him. Alex's life expectancy if this operation went bad was short.

Two days down. One to go, and no idea of how to stop the drug.

Alex Rider did not sleep well that night.

* * *

Next: Tick-tock, Alex. Time to choose.


	30. Heavier Than a Mountain

A/N: Reuploaded due to error message.

Alexie: I seem to have settled into a five-day update schedule, since that suits my writing speed pretty well. Anything much longer than that, and I mention the delay in an A/N.

* * *

Dawn rose bright and early on the last day of Graff's little get-together. Alex was exhausted. He had spent most of the night caught up in one nightmare after another. The clone. Sarov's suicide. Jacob Sullivan. Collier's agreeable look as he picked up the gun.

He couldn't let that drug get out in the world but he only had the vaguest of ideas of how to stop it. Wait until they left the island. Try to get the intel to an intelligence agency. Try not to get himself killed in the process.

It was a pretty bad plan, even by Alex's standards.

Unlike the day before, breakfast was quiet and relaxed. The visitors would leave over the course of the day. Veldt stayed only for long enough to finish breakfast and satisfy the requirements of basic politeness before he bid everyone goodbye and left, some number of contacts and potential business propositions richer if what Alex had caught of the man's conversations was correct.

Sahu and Ruge left two hours later, though they seemed a little reluctant since they had both been deep in conversation. Alex suspected they had timed it to avoid the rain due in the afternoon.

Graff and Hart seemed to have hit right off and they talked straight through lunch. Yassen was somewhat less talkative, but Marinescu was chatty enough for both of them. Alex felt a little bemused, watching them. It wasn't just two dangerous men talking. They were the representative of their respective organisations, currently the embodiment of SCORPIA and Glaive, with all the power and influence that came with that responsibility. He wouldn't have expected them to get along at all, they were competitors and wildly different personalities, but then … it was business, nothing more. They both understood the value of networking for their respective employers.

Marinescu left after lunch. He offered his cheerful thanks and congratulations to Graff on an excellent product, slipped Alex another business card, and snapped a series of brisk orders to his crew. The _Victory_ glowed brilliantly in the sunshine as she departed, growing steadily smaller until she vanished entirely from view.

The _Boudicca_ remained where she was, just as bright in the sunshine. Graff and Hart were still deep in conversation. Alex wondered about the schedule for the yacht. He had been down to check on her and her crew several times while Yassen remained with Graff and Hart in the main building. Several of the crew looked bored but resigned to waiting. It wasn't the worst place to be stuck, Alex supposed, though he would really prefer it if Hart left, too.

The afternoon rain started. The afternoon rain stopped again. Hart didn't seem to be in a hurry.

Hart had already sent Daniels off to get everything ready for departure. The man hadn't looked too happy to leave Hart alone with Yassen nearby but he had followed orders. That had been well before lunch and none of the crew had left the yacht since. No wonder they looked bored.

Several of SCORPIA's own guards still watched the pier and the yacht, but there was no sign of anything wrong. Just a very social boss with a strong nose for business who was in absolutely no rush to leave. Based on the crew's reaction, it wasn't the first time, either.

Something still made Alex feel on edge.

In the end it was the smallest of things that alerted them.

Alex saw nothing. None of the guards did, either. Hart shifted in his chair. Leaned forward and refilled his wine glass. Settled back more comfortably and resumed the conversation.

Yassen reacted like a fer-de-lance disturbed in its sleep. Three swift steps to cross the distance between himself and Hart, and strong fingers locked around Hart's wrist even as he reached under the table where Hart's hand had rested.

Yassen clearly knew what he was looking for, because a quick brush against the underside of the table was all he needed to find his target; a small, dark object that looked mostly like a dead bug. By then the guards had reacted, too, weapons aimed at Hart though there was no obvious threat for now, and Alex had crossed the room to reach Yassen as well.

The item in his hand was small and winged, and looked almost perfectly like one of the native insects. Only up close did its metallic nature become apparent. It seemed to be dormant for now. The wings were folded up and there was no movement at all from it. Probably hideously expensive and highly advanced. It looked like something out of Smithers' imagination. It was tiny, too. No one would have spotted it underneath the table. There were countless places something like that could have been hidden in the buildings where no one would have spotted them. If they had been, they would probably have been dismissed as a dead insect and cleaned up. How Yassen had spotted it, Alex had no idea.

Graff had got up from his chair as well. He did not look happy. "Mr Gregorovich! You can't -"

"A surveillance bug in the shape of an actual insect. MI6's sense of humour in action," Yassen interrupted him. He kept his iron grip on Hart, never once looking away. The man arched an eyebrow. If he was in any way worried about the fact that he had just been outed as in league with MI6 in front of Yassen Gregorovich, with no bodyguard to help him, it didn't show.

"We're compromised." Yassen's voice had the finality of an executioner's axe. "Orion, hunt our wayward Mr Daniels down. Preferably alive, dead is acceptable. Take Sagitta with you. Go."

"He's on my yacht. He's been there since noon. But by all means, waste your time." Hart's voice sounded mostly bored.

Yassen smiled thinly. "I sincerely doubt that. Orion, go. John, get everyone on high alert. Don't tip off the _Boudicca_ yet."

Alex didn't stay to watch the rest of the fallout. John was already in motion and Alex touched his headset, switching to Sagitta's channel.

"Sagitta, this is Orion. Hart is compromised, assume Daniels is, too. We've got orders to hunt Daniels down. He's supposed to be on the yacht; Cossack's pretty sure he isn't. Alive is preferred, dead is acceptable. I'll take the subterranean levels. Keep the rest of Hart's people in the dark, we don't want them alerted yet."

" _Copy, sir."_

It was not a large island but when faced with the task of finding one MI6 spy with only eight men to do it, it would take both luck and skill. He understood why, though. If Hart and Daniels were both MI6, who knew what sort of firepower they might face on the yacht? They needed people ready, just in case.

Alex was already inside the main building, closest to the staff level and the lab. He trusted Sagitta to handle the rest. He listened with half an ear to the radio, both the main channel and Sagitta's as he began the sweep of the two levels, systematically locking the hallways and rooms behind him. The staff stayed out of his way and didn't question the order to stay where they were.

" _\- Aranda, Ivey, north sector. Adams, Mace -"_

" _\- nothing on surveillance anywhere, no sign of -"_

One of the maids startled as she saw him, gun in hand and a hard look on his face. "Sir?"

"Intruder," Alex replied. "Daniels, Hart's bodyguard. They're both compromised. Seen him?"

The woman shook her head but her expression hardened as well. She knew the instructions in case of situations like that. Stay out of the way. Keep the door locked until told otherwise. The last agent had shot one of the staff in his attempted escape. Not fatally, but more than enough to turn all of the staff firmly against outsiders. "No, sir."

He let her move past, still keeping a close eye on his surroundings. He doubted Daniels was in the staff quarters, there were too many people, but he had to check. Check and cut off the exit it would provide.

" _\- guards by the helicopters. Shoot anyone who approaches -"_

" _\- want snipers on the yacht, at least one at all times -"_

Every locked door behind Alex was one less escape and one less hiding spot. The number of people who could override it could be counted on one hand with fingers to spare, and Alex took orders from all of them.

Alex finished up with the staff quarters. With the staff a number of hallways away, close to the entrance, the place was fallen completely silent.

On to the maintenance sections, then. Alex stopped by the heavy door and let it scan his palm before he entered his code. The door was locked but that meant nothing. If someone had access to it, they could just as easily lock it again behind them.

Of course, if Daniels was there, they had another problem. Someone had helped, either with access to the actual area or to security for a workaround. Neither option was good.

" _\- yacht is still clear; no activity -"_

" _\- no sign of unauthorised access from the emergency tunnels -"_

The hallway was unnervingly still. There was the low, deep hum of machinery and the occasional sound from the pipes, the beating heart of the entire compound, but there was nothing else. No voices, no footsteps, nothing.

Alex found what he was looking for by the only utility tunnel. It was little more than a low half-floor that connected the maintenance section with the lab below, meant to give easy access to the nest of cables, wires, and pipes that ran between the two levels.

It should have been under just as much security as the lab itself. Given that Ben Daniels had the heavily secured door open, something had obviously gone wrong. Alex realised there and then that the surveillance cameras in the area had to be looped. Daniels could have been there for hours and no one would have seen.

The alarm hadn't been sounded. Yassen had given Hart no chance to warn anyone. Alex's approach had been completely silent.

Daniels gave no sign that he knew he wasn't alone. Just shifted a little. Brought his hand closer to his chest.

"Don't." Alex's voice sounded unnaturally loud in the bare hallway, gun aimed unwaveringly at their unwanted guest. "Turn around. Slowly."

Daniels nodded slightly and turned around, hands kept in plain sight.

"Orion." Daniels sounded perfectly calm, especially for someone in the sights of a SCORPIA assassin. He had seen Alex's file, there was no way he hadn't. Alex wasn't even surprised he knew of the Orion name. Ramos had heard it used. He had probably been happy to share it with the FBI to get even a little.

"Agent Daniels," Alex greeted. A heartbeat. "Are you sure you want to remind me that I'm a trained killer, given I'm holding the gun and you're working for the people that ruined my life?"

"Point," Daniels conceded. His eyes were calm. Sharp and analytical. Like a proper MI6 agent. Alex wanted to hate him. "Alex, then."

 _Preferably alive, dead is acceptable._ Yassen's order crept through Alex's mind, low and insidious. Daniels was waiting for the right time to attack, the moment Alex's focused wavered even slightly, and they both knew it. Daniels knew it would be a lost cause once he was in Yassen's hands. Alex was the weak spot. The one opportunity he would get.

Alex's gun didn't waver but he couldn't quite stop the slight tremor in his hand. He could kill strangers. He couldn't kill someone he knew, even for as short as his stay at Brecon had been. Daniels was MI6, the same MI6 that had almost managed to get him killed when they had tried to use Grief's creation, but -

\- he couldn't. Not someone he knew.

He remembered few kind words from his time at Brecon, but they had almost all been from Daniels. The youngest of the unit. The only one who had tried to explain, even just once or twice. The only one who had shown a shred of sympathy for the fourteen-year-old that had been left to fend for himself in the middle of SAS training.

Alex had been warned not to call his targets by name. No one had mentioned the terrible feeling of having the target call _him_ by name instead, and Daniels had to know the effect it had.

Shoot to incapacitate? And leave him for Yassen to deal with, like that was any better. He would become Graff's next test subject. It would be kinder to shoot him, then.

And with Graff's charming plans for that drug … Alex had no idea of when he would be able to get the necessary information to the right people. If they would even trust it. If it would already be too late. Daniels was MI6. Alex hated Blunt, hated everything about the man, but he knew Blunt was ruthless enough to stop the drug by whatever means necessary.

 _If anything goes wrong and can't be salvaged, erase all evidence._

They already had the order. If this – an intelligence agency that had likely bugged the whole house, inside help from someone with the staff, and an agent who had possibly had hours on his own to go through intel – didn't count, Alex didn't know what did. All he had to do was … nudge things just enough to make everything collapse.

He would condemn every last member of the research staff in the process but he had a chilling suspicion Samantha Graff hadn't planned to let them leave alive, anyway.

Whatever he chose, someone would die. At least the people in that lab had actively helped create that drug in the first place, even knowing what it could do.

Alex swallowed and made up his mind. If Daniels escaped, any intel that got out would be blamed on MI6. Alex would still be held responsible for letting an enemy agent escape on his watch, but … it was a chance. They would probably still kill him for a failure of that magnitude, but maybe it would keep Yassen and Sagitta safe. He had to try. It had to be stopped.

 _If you're going to refuse, be sure it's worth your life._

"There's only one exit this way. My people know and they'll target it the moment I sound the alarm. I assume Hart already told you what Graff is up to. It's a slow-working, airborne drug that makes the targets susceptible to suggestions and orders, strong enough to make someone kill themselves if told to. It'll be ready for mass production within five months as the plan is now. I don't know where the actual production will take place, but Graff's got industrial properties in São Paulo you'll want to look into. Go back, take the northern emergency exit. Three hallways down, to the left. I'll give you a twenty second head start before I call for reinforcements for this exit. Kill any of my men, and I'll make you wish you were never born. If you're captured, you'll be dead before you can get me killed as well."

He might be able to talk his way out of a legitimate mistake. Treason would be a slow, painful death.

Alex lowered the gun. Daniels hesitated for just a second.

" _Go!_ " Alex snarled, and Daniels vanished down the hallway with all the speed and grace of a trained soldier-turned-spy.

\- Eight, nine, ten -

The footsteps faded. Alex took a deep breath. Desperately hoped he had done the right thing. Daniels was competent. He had to be. Alex couldn't let Graff's shiny new weapon get out in the wild. Someone had to stop it, and Alex couldn't.

\- Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen -

Alex touched his headset. "Sagitta, this is Orion. It looks like our guest took the escape route through the maintenance tunnels. He's been messing around with something in the utility tunnel leading to the lab. The only exit is south sector. Stop him."

" _Copy."_

The order had been given. It was too late to change his mind now. SCORPIA didn't accept failure. Ben Daniels' escape would not go over well with them. Whatever happened, Alex would do what he could to shield Sagitta from it. It had been his decision, and he had made it knowing the likely consequences. He would take the full responsibility and hope for the best. That was all he could do.

The guilt about destroying Johann and Hanna's lives would come later, he knew. The nightmares of himself in Blunt's place, faceless and inhuman and grey. If he had a 'later', anyway.

It took the better part of an hour before Sagitta had to concede defeat. Guilt had settled as a stranglehold around Alex by then. He had kept Yassen up to date on everything, from Daniels' work in the utility tunnel, whatever it had been, and to any progress in the hunt for the man. He had gone through the lab as well, just to make sure everything was in order.

It was obvious Daniels must have had inside help. More than just Smithers' gadgets. The emergency exits had been heavily secured but it was the only place the man could have managed to get in unseen. To do it and not leave any evidence behind … someone had helped, and Yassen was well aware of it, too. How much information Daniels had managed to get, Alex didn't know, but given the mess of cables that Daniels had left behind, he hoped it was a lot. That it would be worth it.

" _He's gone, sir,_ " Marcus finally reported.

Alex had expected it. It only made the guilt worse. They had done their best but that wouldn't do a damn bit of good when their operative was actively sabotaging their efforts.

"Nothing to do about it. I'll let Yassen know," Alex replied. That was the least he could do. Yassen wasn't the type to shoot the messenger but that didn't make it any more fun to report bad news to him. Yassen cut an intimidating figure when he was annoyed.

He found Yassen where he had left him. Hart was still in the chair, though under the careful watch of two guards. SCORPIA's orders to leave the man unharmed obviously still stood. Graff was gone, not that Alex was really surprised.

"Orion," Yassen greeted. That was the tone of voice that demanded a report. If Yassen didn't mind Hart listening in, Alex didn't, either.

"He escaped, sir." Alex's summary of the situation was calm, steady, and to the point.

Yassen didn't look surprised. Then again, Yassen never looked surprised in Alex's experience, so that didn't say much.

Yassen's gaze sharpened. Alex had learned to control his body language. It made no difference around Yassen, who knew him better than anyone. A glance towards an empty room was all the instruction Alex needed and he followed Yassen inside, neither speaking until the door was closed.

Cool, blue eyes watched him carefully, taking in every reaction and shift of his muscles and features, however slight. Alex had expected it. He hadn't really believed he would be able to keep it a secret from Yassen, but it still felt a little like defeat that the man had spotted something wrong quite that fast.

"Alex?" Yassen's voice was perfectly emotionless and all the more chilling for it.

Alex raised his head defiantly. He had made his choice and he would stand by it now. "I let him escape. I won't let that sort of drug out in the world."

It took a long time for it to work properly now, but what about in a year or two, when they'd had time to perfect it? No. If Alex could do anything to stop it, he owed it to the world to try.

"Did you leave any evidence?"

Alex hesitated. Whatever reaction he had expected, that had not been on the list. "No." He didn't think so, anyway. Nothing but Daniels himself. The tracker would show nothing but Alex's cautious approach, in case Daniels was still around. Daniels himself … MI6 had already tried to get Alex killed by using his Grief clone against SCORPIA. If they tried to claim that Alex was a traitor to SCORPIA now, the board would have little reason to believe them.

"Hunter, at least, knew to avoid anything incriminating as well. For the most part, I suppose." Yassen sounded resigned. "Did you consider we are on an island well away from the mainland?"

 _What?_ Sure Alex knew, but he didn't know quite what Yassen was playing at. Then it clicked. The _Boudicca_ was not only too large for a quick getaway, but it was heavy guarded now as well. Daniels would know better than to even try.

"He had to have had an escape planned."

Yassen nodded slightly.

Anxiety started to sink in, the way it hadn't earlier. "Backup, too?" Alex guessed.

"For an operation large enough to have compromised Hart? Almost certainly."

They were probably facing an attack, then. MI6 had been willing to take their time and set up reliable surveillance that could be activated when SCORPIA eased up on the island-wide blackout. With that part of the mission a bust and with as dangerous as the drug was, there was no reason why they wouldn't use whatever reinforcements they had in the area.

Part of him desperately hoped it would be enough. Another, larger part of him knew he was a wanted terrorist in a location that could very likely soon be at the centre of an SAS attack. Him, and Yassen, and Sagitta, and the rest of their people – and the Graffs.

"... Evacuation, then?" Alex asked.

"Evacuation." Yassen's eyes never left Alex's as he reached for his headset. Alex recognised the channel as Sagitta's. "Sagitta, this is Cossack. Destroy the _Boudicca,_ leave no survivors. Hart is under guard in the main building and is not to be touched. Kill anyone that doesn't belong to SCORPIA, security, or is on the safe list. Follow evacuation protocols."

There was a knock on the door. John – Ivan – opened the door without prompting. Yassen gestured for the man to come closer, his attention still focused on Alex. "We're compromised. Erase all evidence. Kill anyone not SCORPIA, security, or on the client's list. The agent had inside help. Evacuate the island. Standard protocol."

The man nodded once. "Graff and the security staff?"

"I'll handle that."

"Sir." Another short, sharp nod and the man left, already giving orders of his own. Alex heard the sound of footsteps. Then they were gone again.

It was too late to change his mind now. The research lab would be destroyed, the staff killed without hesitation. Alex remembered faces and people he had barely talked to, but they were still living, breathing human beings that he had just condemned to death. Because he had let Daniels escape. Because he couldn't let the drug out in the world if he could stop it. Alex might not have pulled the trigger himself, but the blood was still on his hands.

The research staff, anyone on the _Boudicca …_ and if Sagitta wasn't fast enough, didn't catch them by surprise; if someone was prepared for a fight – he and Yassen could easily lose people, too. People that Alex knew and cared about, people that he had entrusted his life and well-being to.

He clenched his hands. Willed himself not to tremble.

Yassen's eyes were cold. Calculating. It wasn't a look Alex had been on the receiving end of often, and it was never one he wanted to see. "I considered having you carry out the order yourself. I think we both know why I did not."

It would have been a brutal lesson, but that wouldn't have stopped Yassen if he felt it would have been useful. In this case, with the likely price Alex would pay for his failure, much less if the board discovered just what he had done … he wouldn't be alive long enough for the lesson to be useful, anyway.

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed. He felt weirdly calm. Detached from situation. He had made his decision. All he could do now was accept whatever the consequences would be.

Yassen watched him for a second longer. Then he touched the headset again. " _Fer de Lance_ , this is Gregorovich. We're compromised. The _Boudicca_ is about to suffer an unfortunate accident. Leave the moment the attack begins. Follow standard procedure."

Dispose of anything questionable. Remove all evidence. The _Fer de Lance_ would undoubtedly be boarded and the crew questioned sometime soon, but there would be nothing to pin on them. Everything was perfectly legal and up to standards, from the paperwork to the crew's qualifications.

Yassen turned and left. "With me."

He didn't wait to see if Alex followed the order but headed back into the massive living room, Alex close behind him.

He stopped briefly by Hart. "I am under orders to leave you unharmed." Yassen's tone of voice left little doubt about his opinions regarding that particular order. "Your yacht will suffer an unfortunate accident. There will be no survivors. For your sake, I hope you are more valuable to your MI6 masters than Orion was."

Hart watched him with unreadable eyes. Then he nodded. "Acceptable."

Alex was pretty sure he understood the underlying meaning of the conversation. SCORPIA would not hold MI6's actions against Hart. Hart would not hold SCORPIA's response against them in turn.

Just business. Compromised or not, the _Boudicca's_ crew was expendable and the _Boudicca_ herself ultimately replaceable.

The hallways passed in a blur. Alex had no idea where Iohannes Graff was hiding, but Yassen was heading towards the living quarters.

The muted sound of gunshots outside cut through the silence. Sagitta and the _Boudicca._ The lab was soundproof. There would be no one on the surface level who would hear the slow, merciless progress of gunshots as John and his men cleared the place of all evidence.

It was only a matter of time before the rumble of an explosion announced that the job had been completed.

They stopped by the door to the older Graffs' living quarters. The guard outside, one of SCORPIA's, opened the door without the need to be told.

Bunnell, Mrs Graff's bodyguard, was standing by the wall. Samantha Graff took one look at Yassen's expression and sent Bunnell outside with a sharp gesture. The man didn't look happy but did as instructed.

No one spoke until the door closed behind him.

"We are compromised," Yassen said. "MI6."

"Hart's bodyguard?" Mrs Graff asked.

"And Hart himself as well. The order has been given to erase all evidence. Our combat team will handle his yacht. We expect that they have backup within reasonable range. You will need to evacuate."

Samantha Graff was silent for a long moment.

"Unfortunate, but it was always a risk. Make it look like a suicide." There was a horrible finality in her words and not emotion at all. No regret, no concern, nothing. She didn't need to specify the subject of her words. It was plainly understood by all three of them that Iohannes Graff had only minutes left to live.

Yassen nodded once. "We have left security alone for now. Daniels had inside assistance," he continued. The implied question was obvious.

Samantha needed less time to consider that one. "Are there any you trust to be loyal?"

"Those hired by us. They went through thorough checks and were found through trusted contacts. Ignoring that, they have not been on the island for long enough to pose a security risk of that magnitude."

"Johann is … attached." Alex could see the moment of indecision in her eyes. Ruthless security concerns or her son's personal attachments. Someone who might be a danger but could just as easily be a faithful bodyguard, or deal with the consequences if she had them killed and Johann found out the truth later. She could claim they were fired for the failure and for being suspected security leaks, but that was no guarantee Johann – or more likely Hanna – wouldn't find out.

She closed her eyes briefly. For just a second, she looked human. Tired and weary. Then it was gone again. "Evacuate the trusted ones. Guérin, too. The rest … you know your orders, Mr Gregorovich. "

Yassen nodded and was gone.

 _Erase all evidence._

That was what he had done, then, Alex understood with horrible cold clarity. Whatever he had decided that moment when he'd had Daniels at gunpoint, someone would have died. He had expected the research staff to be killed. He hadn't expected the order to reach that far.

The room was silent. The occasional, muted gunshot was all that managed to intrude on the silence. Samantha got up.

"Get Hanna to the chopper." Standard evacuation. Alex knew his instructions.

"Yes, ma'am," he agreed. "Johann?"

They didn't have neighbouring rooms. Hanna liked the view of the gardens. Johann preferred the sea and the occasional ship in the distance. It wasn't far between them but it would still slow him down now to take a detour to get both of them.

"I will get Johann. If she asks about Iohannes ..."

"... He's been delayed and will be on the backup chopper," Alex guessed. Iohannes would be on the second chopper. Something just went wrong along the way and he was killed. Who would be around to dispute it?

"Exactly."

Samantha opened the door. Bunnell snapped to attention. "You know your orders, Alex," she continued. "I hold you personally responsible."

"Yes, Samantha," he agreed again and took off at a run. Down one hallway, then another, and came to a halt in front of a familiar door. Sebastian already had a gun aimed at him but lowered it when he recognised Alex.

"We need to evacuate," Alex said. "Get her to the chopper."

No further explanation was needed. They had all kept track of the situation. They had just been waiting for the order. Sebastian nodded once and knocked sharply on the door. It opened a moment later to Glynn, the second guard assigned to Hanna, and behind him Hanna herself.

She looked worried but grimly resigned, too. Like she wasn't all that surprised. Alex's own pessimism about the whole thing probably hadn't endeared her to the idea of so many dangerous people in their home.

"Johann?" she asked immediately.

"Your mother's getting him. She brought Bunnell along and Johann has guards of his own. They'll be fine. We have to leave. Now."

She didn't argue, just grabbed her backpack and followed them down the hallway. "I packed. In case of … trouble," she said softly. "Contreras suggested it."

She was probably grateful for that now. He hoped she had been sensible enough to pack the actual necessities and not just whatever would fit into the bag.

Three people to keep an eye on everything was probably overkill and Alex knew it. They hadn't been attacked yet, and the _Boudicca's_ fate was in Sagitta's capable hands, but he felt better with good security around Hanna. All it would take was one mole among the staff to target her. Alex doubted an intelligence agency would bother, but he wouldn't put anything past MI6 if they had the right incentive. She could be caught in the crossfire if someone targeted him, too.

There was a muted rumble somewhere beneath their feet. The lab had been destroyed. Probably the staff quarters, too, just in case. Graff's office on ground level would be next.

Hanna tensed. "Father -"

"He was delayed," Alex lied easily. Iohannes Graff was most likely already dead. "He'll be on the second chopper. There are too many people to evacuate on one."

Hanna stopped abruptly. Sebastian almost ran into her. "If he was in the lab – father wouldn't leave without his research -"

"He's got Mr Gregorovich for protection. He's probably the safest person in the house right now." The lies came easily. So did the guilt. "We need to go. _Now._ "

Alex didn't bother with politeness. Just took a firm grip on her upper arm and pulled her back into motion. She almost stumbled for several steps before she dug her heels back in.

"Something is wrong! That was an explosion, wasn't it? And it was underground. _Alex!_ " She stared at him and swallowed hard. "You're not worried," she whispered. "If Mr Gregorovich is with father, he could be in the lab, too. And – you're not worried."

Alex could see her thoughts pick up, move faster and get clearer as the pieces fell into place. She had inherited her parents' intelligence, Alex didn't doubt it for a second. "So you don't care, or you know he's safe. I know you care, so that isn't it. If you know he is safe and with father like you told me, you would tell me father couldn't have been caught up in that explosion, too."

Alex knew he should get her moving again. Right there and then, he let her have the last few seconds needed to work it out. He owed her as much.

"Your people set off that explosion. You expected it. Father isn't with Mr Gregorovich." She never looked away from him, watching every sign of emotion he might show, right down to the slightest shift of muscles.

"Alex," she said with unnatural calm, "where is my father?"

He could lie. He knew she wouldn't believe him. He couldn't tell her the truth, but he suspected he wouldn't need to. "He will be on the second chopper," Alex repeated, slow and deliberate.

He could see the exact moment the words sunk in proper. Her hand trembled and she took a sharp breath.

"Something will go wrong. He won't make it on board." It was not a question. Alex didn't answer.

"Boss ..." Glynn's voice was low and urgent. Alex nodded and tightened his grip on Hanna again, pulling her back into motion.

Hanna stepped right back and tried to wrench her arm free of his grasp. Against someone trained by Professor Yermalov, it was useless. _"No!"_

" _Yes!"_ Alex snarled right back. "Johann needs you! Do you want him alone with your mother? Give her the chance to shape him into her perfect son?"

The words got through to her when nothing else could. She stilled in his grip and took a shuddering breath.

"Father is dead," she whispered.

"Yes," Alex agreed just as quietly. He shouldn't and he knew it, but he didn't want to lie to her. Not when she had already guessed.

He could see the moment she almost continued that train of thought – and, the second later, the moment she shuddered as her mind drifted too close to something she did not want to confront. Instead she closed her eyes and nodded sharply. When she opened them again, there was new-found determination in them, determination and the ghost of weariness in her features.

When they continued down the hallway, she followed along without any objections. To the right, through a pair of massive, sliding glass doors and to the chopper visible at the end of the immaculate lawn -

A bright flash and the roar of an explosion, followed by a rising column of smoke from the small harbour. The _Boudicca._

Hanna flinched but didn't ask, her focus solely on keeping up with Alex's brisk pace. The air smelled like smoke. The sound of gunshots picked up a second later.

Marcus' voice in his ear cut through the tense silence between Alex and Hanna. _"Reinforcements arrived, south-west sector. Probably SAS, looks like a full troop."_

Nothing they hadn't expected. It still sent Alex's heartbeat hammering and anxiety twist sharply in his chest.

His face must have given something away. "Alex?" Hanna didn't sound like she wanted to hear the answer.

"Reinforcements. SAS."

They were almost at the two choppers. The Graffs' looked about ready to take off, the backup one still winding up. Alex sped up, and Hanna followed his cue. Sebastian and Glynn kept a close eye on their surroundings.

The blades were spinning fast, the engine noise overwhelming right next to the machine, but the door was still open. Johann was inside along with Samantha. The woman nodded slightly at the sight of them. There might have been a glimpse of relief, though Alex couldn't tell for sure at that distance.

Hanna hesitated right at the door. She glanced at Alex, concern in her eyes. Alex understood the unspoken question.

"We'll leave as soon as you take off!" he answered. This close, he had to lean over and raise his voice to be heard above the roar of the chopper. "I'll be fine!"

Probably. No point in mentioning that, though. Or the board's likely reaction to the whole thing. He could get on the chopper, just … leave, and for a second he was tempted. Hanna obviously wanted him to. Samantha had tried to buy him already and they had enough money and influence to simply vanish somewhere and lay low for a while.

For just a second. Then the thought was gone again. Leaving might have bought him time. Sticking around to face the board was almost certain suicide, but he had known that when he had made the decision to let Daniels go. He wasn't about to leave Yassen and Sagitta and the guards to handle clean-up and the fallout alone.

Hanna seemed to accept that. She nodded once and got inside. Alex closed the door and got out of range, then gestured to the pilot.

The loud roar of the engine picked up. The chopper lifted off.

Alex did not stay to watch it leave.

* * *

Next: The fallout.


	31. Lighter Than a Feather

Alex Rider had never really considered how good the SAS was until he was stuck on an island under attack by them. Wolf and his men had been good at their jobs at Point Blanc, he knew that. It was something else entirely to know you were on the other side of things and that somewhere on the island there was at least one troop of SAS, and quite possibly more. No one knew what sort of reinforcements MI6 had decided to send along for the mission.

He had also never considered quite how small the island would suddenly feel. It had been overwhelmingly huge to secure. Now, with armed forces bearing down on them, he felt trapped. They had the advantage of familiar terrain and a solid month to set up security. Still Alex knew it was just a brief delay.

One part of his job done, Alex contacted Yassen. "Cossack, this is Orion. The Graffs are in the air. Orders, sir?"

Yassen's response came instantly. _"Send the guards to John. You're with Sagitta."_

"Yes, sir." He wondered how they were doing against the soldiers. He supposed he was about to find out. There were still gunshots, but they were careful and deliberate now.

Alex passed the orders on to Sebastian and Glynn, and left them to track down their boss on their own. They headed back into the building, and Alex down towards the small harbour. For just a moment, he was alone. Yassen was … somewhere. The guards were finishing up with the buildings. Sagitta -

"Marcus, this is Orion. I've got orders from Cossack to join you. Where do you want me?"

Right there and then, Alex wasn't their boss. Marcus had a much better idea of what they were up against, and Alex wasn't ashamed to admit that.

" _By the pier, approach from the north-east or you'll get caught in the crossfire. Tell me when you're getting close."_

The same direction he was already going, then. "Copy," Alex replied.

The air smelled like the thick, billowing smoke from the _Boudicca._ The sound of the Graffs' chopper had faded and the backup chopper was about to take off, too. The gunshots had come closer. The island felt a lot less safe than it had just a few hours ago. Alex did his best to keep track of everything; his surroundings and the direction of the gunshots and anything else that could be a threat, but it wasn't enough.

Alex got no warning at all. Just the sudden awareness that he wasn't alone, followed by the cold touch of a gun against the back of his head. His headset was removed with surprising gentleness a second later. Alex tensed, and the gun pressed slightly harder.

"Don't," Ben Daniels said, throwing Alex's words back at him. "Hands in plain sight. Two step forwards, then turn around. Slowly."

For a moment, Alex was tempted to fight back, but he knew the odds would be bad. More than likely, he would end up shot. Yassen could have done it. Alex wasn't Yassen.

More footsteps, almost inaudible. The faint rustle of leaves. Daniels just got company.

Two careful steps and Alex turned around to face the man. Daniels had four SAS soldiers with him now. Alex wouldn't have managed more than half a step if he had tried anything, and that was obvious now.

"On your knees," Daniels instructed. "Hands behind your head."

Alex hesitated. Considered his chances against an SAS soldier turned MI6 agent and the soldiers backing him. Daniels seemed to know the direction of his thoughts, too.

"Try anything and they'll shoot to incapacitate. We have orders to bring you in alive, not to bring you in unharmed. You'll be alive to be interrogated but you know it's a death sentence in SCORPIA terms. Injured, you'll never escape. Cooperate, and maybe you'll get a chance later."

The same kind of choice he had given Ramos. Cooperate or deal with the consequences. The irony wasn't lost on him. Maybe Daniels had read the FBI's interrogation notes. They had to have asked the man about the teenage SCORPIA operative. If nothing else, Ramos had probably been happy to get even in a small way.

Alex considered it for a second longer. Seriously wondered if he should risk it, anyway. Then common sense took over and he nodded once and slid to his knees on the damp ground. His eyes never left Daniels.

"I should have killed you when I had the chance," he said spitefully. One stupid, impulsive decision in an attempt to do the right thing, and everything had come crashing down. Daniels was supposed to have left, not returned with an SAS troop at his back. MI6 had never bother with backup for Alex. What made Daniels so special they gave it to him? What made him so special they actually cared if he lived or died?

Alex wasn't sure why he felt irrationally betrayed. He should have expected it. They were on opposing sides. Daniels had a job to do. So did Alex, even now. He had turned on SCORPIA but he had stayed to deal with the consequences, because he wasn't about to let someone else handle that in his place.

There was a flicker of emotion in Daniels' eyes, something Alex couldn't quite decipher. "Most SCORPIA operatives would have. I'm rather glad you didn't."

Two of the soldiers approached him. Alex didn't resist when they removed his weapons and patted him down to make sure they didn't miss anything before his arms were twisted behind his back and locked into place with several zip tie restraints.

There were a dozen biting replies Alex wanted to give to that comment but he wasn't about to give Daniels any more ammunition. Instead he glanced at the soldiers.

"Did you tell them just why MI6 wants me back so badly?"

"They know the background."

Just evasive enough to be the truth but not the whole truth. Yassen was a master at that sort of wordplay and Alex's expression hardened.

"They know that MI6 blackmailed a fourteen-year-old schoolboy into a life-threatening mission that had already killed his uncle just days before? That they did it again when he turned out to be good enough to survive that sort of thing?"

"You signed the OSA, just as my men did."

"I'm SCORPIA," Alex hissed. "I'm dead no matter what. If you feel any kind of remorse for how you bastards treated me, you'd shoot me now. I don't plan on going back into Blunt's hands alive."

He would take his chances with the board, with Yassen, on his own – anything but Blunt.

Daniels ignored him. He nodded to the two soldiers that had removed his weapons, and Alex was hauled back on his feet.

"We have orders to bring you in by any means necessary," Daniels said. "You've been trained like an adult, Orion. You'll be treated like one."

Translated, Alex knew, his age didn't matter. They didn't _want_ to shoot a fifteen-year-old, but they would do it in a heartbeat if they had to. He wasn't Alex Rider, not now. He was Orion, Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice. If he tried anything, they would shoot first and sort out the problem later.

One of the soldier by Alex's side kept a gun aimed at him. The other kept a close eye on their surroundings.

"Move it," the closest one instructed. Alex didn't recognise his voice, but he didn't really expect to. He had spent less than two weeks in SAS training. Most of the soldiers there wouldn't even have lasted through the entire selection. There were a lot of them out there he had never met, and their entire getup, uniform and gear and all, was aimed towards making them perfectly anonymous. "If you open your mouth again, we'll gag you. Try anything, and there a lot of places to shoot you that won't kill you."

Alex didn't doubt it. His arms were twisted hard enough that his shoulders had already started to hurt. He had learned to get out of zip ties, but the SAS soldiers had just as clearly learned to take that sort of thing into account.

Out of realistic options, Alex started walking. Daniels was right. Maybe he would get a chance later. They led him through the dense vegetation by one side out of the island, well out of sight. He wondered where Yassen was. The smoke from the _Boudicca_ had mostly died off, the wreckage probably sinking fast. The sound of gunshots had picked up again. A full troop, Marcus had said. Around fifteen soldiers. Sagitta was probably fighting the rest of those soldiers now. Some of SCORPIA's people would get injured. Some would likely get killed.

All because Alex had let Daniels escape. Because he had been willing to pay with his own life to stop Graff's plans, but it had rapidly become clear to him that he wasn't willing to pay with Sagitta.

Neither Alex nor the two soldiers that guarded him got any warning. The two shots came so close together they could have been mistaken for one, the sound much louder than the muted battle further away.

Alex felt warm wetness against the side of his face, smelled iron and death, and he flinched. For a moment he thought he had been the target, that he would feel a bullet in his back. Then the two soldiers collapsed, the blood and wounds from the gunshots almost invisible against the dark uniforms.

Mace and Shale appeared from the dense foliage, weapons still in hand, and the sheer relief made Alex dizzy for second.

Mace pulled one of his combat knives and cut through the ties around Alex's arms while he looked over Alex's general condition with an experienced eye. "Damn, they meant business. Who'd you piss off?"

One zip tie fell to the ground. Three more followed in short order. Alex could feel the pins and needles in his arms as he stretched them. "Daniels," he said. "And MI6, I guess. Thank you. I thought you were on the other side of the island. Communications are compromised, too. Daniels took my headset."

"We already handled that. The commander got suspicious when you didn't answer, that's what tipped us off in the first place," Shale said and handed him a gun. Alex felt a little less vulnerable with a weapon in his hand again. "He sent us to find you. Cossack gave the evacuation order. We're leaving."

Not a surprise. It had been enough time for the guards to have removed all evidence by now. It explained why it had been Mace and Shale sent after him, too. Medic and sniper. Enough to handle most things Alex might have managed to get himself tangled up in.

"Status?" Alex asked, following along as they set off at a slow jog, keeping a careful eye on their surroundings. Through the dense plants, down towards the beach and the helicopters.

Mace's expression turned grimmer. "We've lost some of the guards, not sure how many. Adams got shot in the chest; the ballistic vest took the worst of it but he's definitely cracked some ribs. Jarek got grazed by a bullet in the arm. It's pretty deep; he'll be out for at least a month. It's going to get a lot worse if we don't get out of here now, though."

Behind them, Shale had brought Marcus up to date and continued to keep up the running updates as they approached the helicopters on the beach. It was a horrible compromise between speed and caution. The gunshots were closer now. The sound of helicopter blades and engines grew steadily louder.

The first helicopter had just taken off when they arrived on the beach. The second was close behind. Both were heavily marked by bullets. Whoever had made sure they were armoured – probably Yassen – had meant the difference between functional machines and burning wrecks.

That close, the roar was overwhelming. Even the gunshots were mostly swallowed by the raw noise.

Yassen was waiting for them, as was most of Sagitta. Alex wasn't surprised. It was their operation, their responsibility, and they weren't leaving until everything was done. Adams and Jarek were missing, probably evacuated on the first flight.

Simultaneous explosions went off right where vegetation met sand.

"Ours!" Shale shouted and pushed Alex inside the helicopter.

He reacted on autopilot more than anything. Strapped himself down in the first seat he could and accepted the headset someone threw at him. It was khaki and ugly, and the seats were a world away from the comfort of the Graffs' chopper, but right now it was the most amazing thing in the world to Alex.

For long seconds it was organised chaos as people strapped down. Then Yassen got inside, slid the door closed hard behind him, and the helicopter lifted off even as he got settled.

They took a sharp turn left and out over the sea, putting as much distance between themselves and the island as they could. Alex hadn't seen what gear the SAS troop had brought with them, but he had to trust that Yassen and Sagitta were reasonably sure it was nothing that could bring down a helicopter.

For moment Alex had a clear view of Santa Catarina Island. The wreck of the _Boudicca_ was smouldering in the harbour. Parts of the compound were burning. Smoke and dust drifted away from the island from the explosions Sagitta had set off. There were uniformed figures on the beach growing smaller fast.

Then it was gone.

Further out, sailing out towards the Caribbean Sea, was the distinctive shape of the _Fer de Lance_ , already well away from the island. She had two powerful engines underneath her unwelcoming exterior.

Alex wondered about Hart and whatever deal the man had with MI6. Blackmail? A voluntary agreement? The man hadn't looked worried. Maybe he knew the soldiers had been warned he was on their side.

Daniels was down there somewhere, too. Alex wondered what they would get out of the wreckage that had been the Graffs' home. The guards had done a good job. All evidence had been destroyed. Killed, in some cases. Alex knew it was unlikely they hadn't missed something, somewhere, but anything important would be gone. Had Daniels gained access to something through the utility tunnel? How long had he been able to work undisturbed there? Alex had a lot of questions and no answers.

Outside, the view had become nothing but the deep blue of the ocean and the grey of still-lingering rain clouds. They were flying away from Panama. Almost the complete opposite direction from Panama City.

Alex glanced at Yassen. He didn't need to ask the question, because he saw Yassen's lips move and heard his voice in his headset a second later.

" _Colombia. Cartagena."_

Alex wasn't sure where Cartagena was and he supposed it didn't matter. Yassen knew what he was doing. Instead he stared out the window, at endless sea and sky, and tried very hard not to think about the future.

* * *

SCORPIA had put some heavy restrictions on what Yassen could do to Hart, but they hadn't been able to do anything about Cossack's sensible paranoia about the situation.

By the time they arrived in Cartagena an hour and a half later, there was already a plane waiting. If SCORPIA wouldn't let Yassen deal with the situation the way he wanted, SCORPIA could obviously pay to have a business jet on standby in case of trouble instead. Randomly, Alex wondered how Yassen's work-spendings account looked. Probably really interesting.

Forewarned, the pilots were ready to take off on short notice. Even then, Alex spent every minute expecting to be attacked.

John had become Jean sometime over the course of the helicopter flight. When he spoke, his English had taken on a distinctly French accent. His mannerism had changed, his body language subtly different. Even his personality had shifted, less harsh than Ivan but sharper and colder than John.

It was a little creepy to watch. Alex doubted any of the three were the man's real identity. Like Crux, the man became whatever SCORPIA needed him to be, and right now John was compromised – and possibly Ivan, too – but Jean wasn't.

They had noticeably fewer people on the flight than they had brought with them to the island. How many of their own people had Alex condemned when he had let Daniels go? Five? Ten? More?

There were injuries, too. Between Mace and Aranda as well as a couple of guards that had trained as medics, they had it covered. Nothing was bad enough that it couldn't wait until proper medical attention in Dubai. Jarek's arm was bandaged and in a sling to keep him from doing anything stupid. Someone had fed Adams some painkillers. Alex remembered his own bruised ribs and felt them twinge a little in sympathy.

They took off shortly before sunset. The sky was bleeding yellow and pink and orange, the sun setting fast as they headed into night over the Caribbean Sea – and, further out, the Atlantic Ocean.

The sound of the plane was a low drone compared to the noise of the helicopter. The seats were large and comfortable. For now, they were safe.

Somehow, Alex Rider slept.

* * *

The light had dimmed when Alex woke up again. He was curled up in his huge seat, head resting against a warm body. It took a few seconds to wake up enough to realise he was using Yassen's shoulder as a pillow, and a few more to wonder where they were.

The plane was silent but for the drone of the engines and the occasional low snore and deep breathing from somewhere beyond Alex's row of seats. The world outside the window was dark. He wasn't even sure what time it was. It didn't matter much to their people, either. They were experienced enough to take the chance to sleep when they could.

"We're above the Atlantic," Yassen said quietly before Alex could ask. The man was a mind reader. "Approaching the coast of Africa. It will be dawn soon."

They would be in Dubai … sometime in the evening? Alex wasn't sure. He supposed it didn't matter. He was still tired, and anxiety had settled dark and heavy in him. The wait was almost the worst of it. The inevitability.

Yassen shifted slightly. Alex felt the gentle brush of a hand through his hair. Somehow the small bit of comfort made it all the worse.

"Go back to sleep, Alex."

Alex wanted to argue – because what was the point, what difference could it possibly make if he were rested or not – but he didn't.

"I'm sorry," he said instead, so quiet it was little more than a soft exhale.

"I know." Alex could get nothing from Yassen's voice, not even after a year with the man. Whatever his feelings were, even Alex couldn't tell. "Sleep. You need it."

Alex closed his eyes. He was asleep again seconds later.

* * *

They had to land once to refuel. It didn't take long, but it was a welcome chance to stretch their legs a little and get something to eat. Even a business jet got cramped and a little claustrophobic after that many hours in the air, and food was just easier to eat at a proper table. Alex's uniform was still stained by grass and dirt, and he wasn't the only one. There were no spare supplies on board, but Alex didn't doubt they would be available wherever they got to spend the night.

He still had the gun that Shale had given him as well as a spare pair of combat knives from one of the guards. It shouldn't have felt as reassuring as it did to have weapons on him again.

In the air again, Alex settled in a window seat and watched the world pass by below them. Northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and a glimpse of the Red Sea in between. The sky shifted with the landscape, from bright sunlight through dusk and finally into the darkness of night and the stars and moon above, impossibly sharp and clear.

By the time they finally arrived in Dubai, it was well past midnight. Alex wasn't surprised to find a number of cars and several minivans – white, of course – waiting for them. The drivers seemed to know what they were doing, and knew exactly what passengers to look for.

Alex also wasn't surprised to find the guards bustled off to the minivans, and neither were the guards themselves. Business as usual, probably. Any injuries got picked out for a separate car, probably to get an actual check-up and treatment.

One of the drivers approached Alex where he was watching the whole thing. Yassen and Marcus were talking quietly but stopped when the man approached. "Mr Rider? Commander? Mr Kurst is expecting you."

Zeljan Kurst. Of course it was. Kurst definitely didn't share the soft spot Dr Three seemed to have for Alex. Of course the board would use him for the debriefing.

Yassen arched an eyebrow. The man seemed to falter just slightly. "A room has been booked for you, Mr Gregorovich. Your presence was not requested."

Yassen let the man wait for a few tense seconds. Then he nodded. The man took that as the dismissal it was and retreated to a respectful distance.

Marcus looked tense but left to join the driver at Yassen's pointed look. Alex could feel the knot of anxiety in his chest tighten painfully.

"Any last minute advice?" he asked quietly, echoing the words he had spoken before his first meeting with the board. If he had ever needed it, now would be it, and he somehow didn't think Yassen's original instructions would cut it.

"... Be Alex Rider," Yassen said just as quietly. "Hunter had the luck of the devil. I believe you have inherited it."

Alex swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat. "Hunter's ran out."

Yassen didn't answer. He didn't need to. Alex nodded. Took a deep breath and joined Marcus and the driver as they headed to the car. Yassen wasn't one for obvious displays of anything but Alex had seen more than enough to know that he was worried.

Frankly, so was Alex. By the time they got to Kurst, it would be well past one at night. The board wouldn't have summoned them that late without a good reason.

The drive was silent and tense. The city was a sea of light and life, but Alex saw none of it. It was only when a familiar skyscraper came into view that Alex broke the silence. "Ever met one of the board before?"

"Once, sir." Marcus sounded as on edge as Alex felt.

Alex nodded. "Then you know the deal. Don't speak unless spoken to and let me do the talking otherwise."

Marcus nodded. The conversation died out again.

On impulse, Alex removed the gun and knives he carried and handed them to Marcus before the car came to a halt. The man arched an eyebrow in a silent question but didn't ask. It wasn't like Alex would get the chance to use his weapons, anyway, and he wanted to make a point. He was in SCORPIA uniform, but without the weapons he was much closer to his old self than he was to Orion. If he was going to die, he was going to die as Alex Rider and not as SCORPIA's creation.

They were greeted by a uniformed guard. Alex had come to expect it by now. He wished he hadn't been there often enough to have expectations for that sort of thing.

Neither spoke during the elevator ride. Alex felt the anxiety and dread fade with each count of the floors ticking upwards. By the time the elevator stopped, Alex was calm.

There was nothing he could do now. They would blame him for the failure, and they would be right, but he would be damned if he would let Sagitta get punished, too.

He ignored the two guards that led them to the office, his entire focus on the looming meeting with Kurst. Be Alex Rider, Yassen had said. Alex would do just that.

The office looked just like it had a week ago, save for the absence of Dr Three. There was something different in Kurst's expression, too. Alex had expected sadistic satisfaction or something along the lines since the man didn't like him in the least. Instead he looked … thoughtful, almost. One of those expressions that really didn't fit his face.

"Orion," Kurst greeted him. His accented voice gave nothing away. "I think we both hoped it would be longer than a week before we met again. Are you going to make a habit of this?"

"No, sir," Alex said, quite calmly. "I suspect not."

Layer upon layer of meaning, like everything in SCORPIA's language. _No, I don't plan to make it a habit_ and _no, I don't expect to be alive to do it again_ were both there in equal measure. Kurst picked up on it, too, the slow, measured nod told Alex as much.

Kurst's attention flickered briefly to Marcus. "Commander. Unfortunate business with the agent."

He sounded like a prowling predator looking for a fresh meal, and preferably something still alive and struggling. Marcus held his ground.

"Yes, sir," he replied, voice grim but steady.

"An hour to hunt down one MI6 agent on a single, isolated island, and you failed." The initial mission report had been sent while they refuelled. Kurst had clearly read it.

There was a lot Marcus could have said to that but Kurst didn't want to hear explanations. He knew perfectly well that Daniels had turned out to have backup somewhere nearby. Bringing that fact up now would just invite the question of why they hadn't noticed that, either.

"Yes, sir," Marcus agreed, a little more resigned.

 _Be Alex Rider._

"I was in charge of security," Alex cut in before Kurst could speak again. "Marcus and his men followed orders. If they didn't find Daniels, that's my fault."

No sir, no respectfulness, because right now he wasn't Cossack's obedient pet but Alex Rider, the fourteen-year-old who had mouthed off to a number of people who could have killed him in a heartbeat and never let that stop him for a second.

Kurst's attention turned back to him, like an ugly, sluggish snake woken from its slumber.

"They were given the order to hunt down the agent. They failed. As a result, the island came under attack and the operation failed. I would say that is clear enough, Orion." A subtle reminder and warning of his own position. Well, subtle for Kurst, anyway.

Alex ignored it.

"Marcus' team did the best they could with the information we had. The clients got warned time and again about the agent but refused to let us act. If you have to blame anyone for that whole disaster, then blame me, because I was in charge of security while Cossack dealt with negotiations! Not Marcus! They followed _my_ orders, and _I_ got it wrong!"

He didn't mention SCORPIA's own instructions to leave Hart alone. Kurst was perfectly well aware of the restrictions they had put on Yassen's ability to do his job, and on Alex and Sagitta and the guards in turn, too.

Kurst's expression was utterly unreadable. "You take full responsibility, then?"

The words hung heavy in the air. Alex sensed more than heard Marcus shift, about to speak. "Marcus, _shut up._ Yes, sir," he replied. "I take full responsibility."

He had been the one to let Daniels escape, even if no one but Yassen knew it. He had known it had been a risk when he had done that. His heart hammered but he didn't move, didn't let any of his nerves show. He owed Sagitta and he wasn't about to pull them down with him. If this was it, he wasn't going to flinch.

Kurst was silent for long seconds and simply watched Alex. Alex in turn didn't move, didn't fidget, and focused on keeping his breathing slow and steady and his stance defiant.

Then, finally, the man nodded.

"I was wrong, I think," Kurst said. "You have far more backbone than Hunter ever showed." He straightened. Alex stood at ease. "We got what we desired from Graff's experiments, and we were paid in advance. SCORPIA cares little if his own foolishness got him killed. Your punishment will be left in Cossack's hands. Expect this to be reflected in your pay, however. "

A heartbeat. Then another. "Dismissed."

Alex could hear his heartbeat as rapid drums in his ears. He ignored it and nodded once, sharply. "Yes, sir."

"And Orion … " Kurst's eyes narrowed, cold and utterly remorseless. "You are young. Mistakes are expected. Do not expect the board to be this lenient again."

He would be shot or worse if it happened again. Message received, loud and clear. "Yes, sir."

A small gesture dismissed the two of them. Alex left and heard Marcus follow. Neither spoke until they were in the car again, driving away. Alex suspected that neither of them believed it was actually over until then.

"All right?" Marcus asked quietly.

Alex took a shuddering breath. Closed his eyes. Felt like every sensory impression had been magnified and twisted slightly. His hands trembled, a delayed reaction from everything. "Adrenaline. _Fuck_."

"That about sums it up," the man murmured. "What are Cossack's instructions regarding alcohol?"

"No drinking alone, never on assignments, only in moderation, preferably under trusted supervision, and no drugs or I'll live to regret it," Alex rattled off, never opening his eyes. "Why?"

"We're going drinking. All of us. I think we need it. We'll need to keep the two invalids sober what with the painkillers and all, but at least they got the good stuff."

"Might be hard to go drinking in Dubai at my age. And it's kind of late," Alex pointed out.

"I know a nice little illegal bar run by one of the security companies based here. Best kind of bar around. Besides, it's still evening in Panama."

Alex cracked one eye open. Felt the frantic drumbeat of his heart slowly settle into something more normal. "In that case, tell Cossack we're both still alive, and you've got a date, commander."

* * *

Next: Cossack has his say.


	32. Consequences

A/N 1: Warnings for grim subject matters again, because Yassen. And Dr Three, I guess. I think I managed to stay within canon-levels, though.

A/N 2: It's been a while since I said it, but thank you everyone for reading and for your reviews! I appreciate each and every one of them and they make it an absolute delight to write this thing.

* * *

When Yassen let himself inside Alex's hotel room shortly before noon the following day, its sole inhabitant was surprisingly clear-headed and awake. Curled up on the couch with a mostly-eaten bowl of cereal, but all right. They had been out late, Sagitta and Alex, but someone – Alex blamed Marcus – had apparently decided that fifteen-year-old assassins had a two-drink limit, and Sagitta had run interference with all the subtlety of a SCORPIA combat team whenever it looked like Alex might try for that third drink. He did appreciate their determination to stick to Yassen's instructions regarding alcohol, especially when he woke up without a hangover.

There had been a debit card and passport waiting for him in an envelope at the hotel – Alex recognised the card number as his own – but nothing else. Alex had shrugged and made do with his somewhat dirty t-shirt. He could handle clean clothes later.

He looked up at Yassen's approach, met cold, blue eyes, and felt a lump of lead settle in his stomach.

This wasn't Yassen. This wasn't Hunter's student or Alex's mentor. This was Cossack; cold-blooded, merciless, and utterly amoral.

Yassen Gregorovich was severely displeased.

Alex swallowed. Put the bowl aside. The soft sound of glass against the wooden table was the only sound in the room. He took a breath and got up, standing loosely at ease.

"The board has left your punishment to me," Yassen said, and his voice gave nothing away. "You are fortunate to be alive."

Alex closed his eyes briefly. Took another deep breath. Nodded and met Yassen's hard expression without flinching.

"Yes, sir," he agreed. The board would consider it punishment for his failure to kill an enemy agent. The truth wasn't just failure but flat-out treason, and both Alex and Yassen knew it.

Yassen didn't speak for a long time but just watched Alex carefully. What he was looking for, Alex had no idea, and he wasn't about to ask.

"Eight dead among the guards, Jarek will be on medical leave for six weeks, and Adams owes his life to his body armour. The only reason the board spared you is because SCORPIA managed to gain copies of the research, copies our competitors will not have, and because the incident happened after the other _distinguished visitors_ had left."

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed quietly. Eight more deaths for his count, and that wasn't counting the Graffs' staff. He hadn't pulled the trigger, but he had let Daniels escape and set off the attack in doing so. They would have been alive if he had done his job, the one SCORPIA expected him to do.

And even that wasn't enough. SCORPIA had copies of the research. All he had managed was to slow it down. Stop the future spread of the drug a little. Maybe Yassen had secured those copies. Maybe Adams had. Maybe John and the guards, right before they destroyed the evidence. However it had happened, it was done.

"I was nineteen when Hunter addressed me by name in front of our target and gave me a knife," Yassen said, slow and measured. "He had to die. I had failed my first assignment, and I had yet to kill someone. The knife was sharp but so short it was little more than a toy, only four or five centimetres in all. It was a useless weapon."

Alex had a horrible feeling as to where the story was going.

"He told me to kill the man. It was to be a punishment killing," Yassen continued, "for both of us. No easy death for him, and a lesson for me. The knife was too short for a single stab to the heart. To cut his throat with something that small would be a butcher's job more than an assassination."

There would have been a lot of blood, some part of Alex's mind knew. Yassen would have felt every twitch and jerk of the body as the man died.

Was that what Yassen would make Alex do as well? His punishment for Fox? Alex didn't dare ask.

Yassen took his silence for the dawning understanding it was. Watched Alex with unreadable eyes.

"I could not do it. Hunter sent me outside and shot the man himself. I came to understand later that he had deliberately set me up to fail. He had called the target by name. Made it more than merely an assignment but a human being. He faked the target's death, I believe. Had I been the person SCORPIA trained me to be already then, it would not have mattered. He would have died no matter the method."

Alex didn't move. Hardly dared breathe.

"I gave it serious consideration," Yassen continued mercilessly. "Your recklessness is unforgivable. If you do not learn to control it, it will get you killed. I do not wish to hurt you, Alex, but I wish to see you dead even less."

The words should have been a slight reassurance, and in any other case Alex might have interpreted them as Yassen having dismissed the option again, but he knew better. There was no emotion in Yassen's voice. None.

"The board wishes to ensure you will have learned your lesson. As do I. I will give you the choice," Yassen said, echoing words he had spoken in Malagosto so many months ago, and Alex knew there and then that he would find no mercy at all. "Dr Three has given me free rein to choose a subject for you from the holding cells. You will prove to me that you paid attention when Crux gave you a practical demonstration in interrogation, or you will accept whatever weapon I choose to give you and carry out the execution."

Memories of Singapore, of blood and muffled screams and the stench of chemicals, and Alex wanted to be sick. "You said you wouldn't make me do it."

"And I won't." There was no give in Yassen's voice, none at all. "I give you the choice, Alex. The decision is in your hands."

Alex wasn't about to ask what the weapon would be. He knew the uncertainty would be part of the punishment. The certain, horrible choice against the unknown. "And if I refuse?" he asked and didn't want to know the answer but had to ask, anyway.

"I will leave you in Dr Three's care until such a time when you are willing to make the choice. Perhaps it will take a week. Perhaps two. We have not yet been given a new assignment, and I think you require a lesson that you will remember. Eventually, you will yield. One life that is already condemned to spare yourself? With the right incentive, that will take no thought at all."

Dr Three, who knew Alex's fear of drowning. Dr Three, who had just taken Alex's clone apart bit by bit in the name of scientific curiosity.

Staring at the options, the two terrible choices or a punishment at Dr Three's mercy that would just be delaying the inevitable and would probably break something in him beyond repair in the process, Alex found he was not above begging.

"It was the only mistake I made. I followed your orders, I did everything else right. _Please_ ," he said. "I know I was stupid and reckless. I won't do it again."

 _Please._

Something shifted in Yassen's eyes. Something that might have been a ghost of regret or genuine sympathy for the choice. Maybe Yassen remembered his own lesson at Hunter's hands. Maybe he remembered Alex's reaction in Singapore.

Whatever it was, it was not enough.

"I have given you your options. Your decision, Orion. Now."

Orion, not Alex, and somehow that just made it all the worse.

The interrogation was never a choice at all. He couldn't do it, he refused to, and they both knew it.

Dr Three … the thought alone turned his hands clammy with cold sweat. Memories of water and drowning, of burning lungs and black spots in his vision -

\- which left an unknown weapon, the choice that would put him entirely at Yassen's mercy, and he could be terrifyingly creative when he wanted to be.

Alex had killed at point blank before, but that had been with a gun. Instant or close enough that it made no difference; quick and only painful for the few seconds before death. He had killed with his hands in self-defence once, and he still sometimes remembered that feeling in his nightmares, of a throat crumbling under his hand.

This would not be a gun, though, because Yassen wanted Alex to learn a lesson, and Alex knew it.

He wanted to stay quiet, to pretend that was an option as well, to just … stay there and never have to make the choice, but even silence would be a choice of its own.

Yassen watched, silent and unmoving as Alex made up his mind.

He closed his eyes for a second. Opened them again to meet Yassen's cold gaze. Took a slow breath.

"The weapon," Alex said. "I'll take the weapon."

"Tomorrow, then," Yassen acknowledged.

Make the wait part of the punishment; the dread and the anxiety and the unknown. Alex didn't argue. He had brought it on himself. He had been ready to pay the price when he made that choice. He had no right to complain when it was time to actually do that.

"Yes, sir." He hesitated but needed to ask. "Sagitta -"

"They have been given two weeks of downtime. Adams and Jarek will be given separate assignments until they have been cleared for active duty again. I believe SCORPIA has been looking for an opportunity to send them for a month or two of additional specialist training."

Alex nodded. That was a relief, at least. They wouldn't get to pay for his decisions.

"I am pleased to see you alive," Yassen continued, slightly softer. "But I will not tolerate that sort of impulsive stupidity again."

 _But you'll tolerate it if I thought about it really hard first?_ Alex thought but knew better than to voice it out loud.

"SCORPIA has copies of Graff's research. You have slowed it down at the most," Yassen continued, echoing Alex's own thoughts. Alex didn't doubt Yassen knew it, too. "Is that worth eight lives? The very high probability that the board would have had you shot for the failure, and likely Marcus as well?"

And that wasn't mentioning Hanna and Johann, wherever they were and whatever new life Samantha Graff would set up for them. He hoped she would be wise enough to change their identities and lay low, because they would be hunted now. That wasn't mentioning Jarek and Adams and their injuries. That wasn't mentioning Alex's own close brush with MI6, so close to ending back up in Blunt's hands that the thought gave him chills.

Just to slow it down. Not to stop it, like Alex had hoped. Just to slow it down. He didn't like what it implied, either, the fact that he'd had no idea that they had grabbed copies of the research. He should have expected it, though. Maybe that was why Yassen hadn't told him. Maybe it was a way to protect him, like in Singapore.

"I think," Yassen said, quiet and deliberate, "that you had accepted the price of your own life. It was different, was it not, when you held Sagitta's existence in your hands? When others might pay the price for your decision."

Alex didn't answer the question, because they both knew what the answer would be.

"You knew," Alex said instead. "Or you suspected, at least. That I might try something."

Something tightened in his chest, the horrible suspicion that nothing he did was really his own decision anymore; his every move anticipated by Yassen and the board and MI6. He felt tired again. Drained.

"Why did you let me do it? You could have been killed, too."

Yassen reached out and brushed a lock of Alex's hair away from his eyes. "I am valuable. I would have lived. And while you are much like your father, you are very different from him, too. Hunter would have let everyone around him die without a second thought if it had helped his mission. I am aware that you had the choice to leave with the Graffs, as is the board. You expected death. You still chose to put yourself at the mercy of the board for the people under your command."

And he would have done the same for Yassen if he'd had to, and both of them knew it. Yassen didn't need to say that out loud. The was a softness to Yassen's words that Alex rarely heard. It made him suspect that even while a large part of Yassen sincerely disapproved of Alex's actions, there was a slight, hidden part of him that marvelled, just a little, that Alex would have done that for him. Alex wondered when Yassen had last had someone who had cared about him as a person, as a friend or family or whatever word might describe their messed-up relationship, and realised it had probably been fifteen years. Hunter. And Hunter had betrayed him in the end.

"You still let me do it," Alex said quietly. "You knew and you let me do it."

Yassen didn't answer. Just lowered his hand again.

"Tomorrow, Alex," he repeated. "Bring what you wish to keep with you."

Then he was gone again, and Alex was alone with his thoughts and the silent, merciless countdown of the clock.

* * *

Alex spent most of the day in the hotel room. He ordered room service, got a new set of clothes through the concierge, kept the TV on the low drone of some music channel or another, and just … did nothing. Let his mind zone out completely, with no one to watch over and no security to handle. It was well into the afternoon before he finally left the room.

He needed, well, everything. Clothes for a start. Toiletries that weren't the fiddly, fancy stuff at the hotel. Yassen obviously expected him to handle that himself. Alex wasn't sure if it was a test or just another small reminder that he was an adult in SCORPIA's eyes.

He returned several hours later with a small suitcase and a few bags of supplies. No more than he could have brought it along as carry-on on a flight, but enough to last him a good week. He hadn't paid much attention to what he had bought, either. The clothes were comfortable, casual, anonymous, and not too expensive. Everything else didn't matter. They were a temporary possession like anything else, he had learned that lesson fast.

Alex had dinner alone at a local restaurant and finished the evening in the hotel's gym with the usual two-hour workout that Yassen had taught him painfully to stick to. Alex hoped the physical exhaustion would help him sleep a little better. If nothing else, the familiarity of it all helped clear his mind a little.

Alex did not sleep well, but at least he slept. He considered that a small victory in itself.

Early morning found them back at Malagosto, in Dr Three's domain. They had passed by the most recent batch of students on the way, out for a morning run of the obstacle course. A part of Alex liked the searing July heat, but he was still grateful he had passed through Malagosto in the winter months when the temperature was a lot more suited for hard workouts. The mornings were milder, but even then it was still warm. The gym was at least indoor and air conditioned. Nobody wanted the students to get heatstroke.

There were ten students to Alex's count, of which he only recognised Greer and Osborn. They both looked slightly worse for wear. Resistance to interrogation, maybe. They would be about ready to graduate if Alex's quick, mental calculation was right.

Yassen saw where his attention had drifted to. "There is one student in Dr Three's care at the moment," he noted. His voice was back to the unnerving coldness again. "If you wish to change your mind in regards to your choice, perhaps the good doctor could be convinced to allow you to start easy and practice your techniques as part of RTI training."

Alex shuddered and looked away again.

"There is no mercy in going easy on students during training," Yassen continued, marginally kinder. "Mercy is a weakness. They need to understand their own limits and the methods they face if they are to have any chance of survival."

Alex remembered Yassen's presence during his own two weeks with Dr Three, Yassen's hand keeping him underwater until his lungs were burning and he thought he was going to die, and he thought he understood a little. Yassen would not have bothered for anyone else. But for Alex Rider, for Hunter's only child, Yassen would do whatever it took to give him a chance to survive. Even if he had to torture Alex to do so. Even if he had to destroy every last bit of humanity Alex still had left.

A year before, Yassen had told Alex that he would do what it took to see Alex survive. Alex just hadn't understood back then just how far that promise would reach.

The holding cell that Yassen led him to was small and had just one occupant. Alex recognised the room. He had spent two weeks in an identical one himself.

The man in it was lying on his back, either asleep or unconscious. Alex couldn't tell for sure, but based on the injuries he could see, he was guessing unconscious. He didn't doubt Yassen had chosen that on purpose. The one concession Cossack was willing to make.

Up close, inside the cell, the man looked even worse. There were bruises on most of his exposed skin, meticulous cuts in a number of places, and a probably a medical journal worth of other injuries. Alex recognised a number of them from his own theoretical lessons at Malagosto and he had a horrible suspicion of just what the man had been used for.

Once more, Alex was grateful he had not sat through a practical demonstration during his time at Malagosto. He wondered if that had been a deliberate choice. Ease him into it slowly and not risk losing a promising operative because of a minor issue like that.

Alex half expected Yassen to bring out a small, useless toy knife, as Hunter had done to him. Instead Yassen drew one of his two combat knives and held it out to Alex.

Alex swallowed but reached out to take it. Solid and sharp, familiar from training, and a perfect fit for Alex's hand when he picked it up.

He looked up and met Yassen's light blue eyes, cold and utterly remorseless. There was no leniency. None at all.

Alex took a deep breath. Shooting someone was one thing. This was … different. More intimate. A lot more personal. At least it was a real knife. It would be quick. Not the brutal mess it would have been with the small knife Hunter had given Cossack that day, years and years ago.

And still … Alex stared at the knife in his hand and tried to imagine it covered in blood. The feeling of metal sliding through flesh, of blood on his hands, slippery and sticky and metallic. The man drawing his last, rasping breaths just inches from Alex, and every jerk and twist and struggle as he died.

"Please," he pleaded, the words past his lips before he even decided to voice them. "I'm sorry. I've learned my lesson. I won't do it again."

"Begging is beneath you, Orion."

Alex took another deep breath. "A bargain, then? A gun instead of a knife?"

A gun he could do. The man in the cell was a mutilated mess, as bad as Ramos' 'job interview' for him had been in that basement in Miami. A gun was impersonal.

"And what could you possibly offer to get me to agree?" Yassen sounded vaguely amused. Alex understood why a moment later, when he realised he hadn't thought that far ahead.

"A favour owed?" Yassen continued when the silence stretched on. "You are already my partner and student. You already obey my orders. Money? No, Alex. There will be no bargain."

Alex stared at the knife in his hands. Looked back at Yassen. Steeled himself.

He couldn't do it. Not when he actually had the knife in his hand and was in the same room as his hand-picked victim.

"Then I refuse," he said, quiet but determined, and returned the knife to Yassen's hand. "I'll kill on assignments. I won't kill someone because it's supposed to be my punishment."

"He is dead no matter what. It would be a mercy, I think, after his interrogation and use as training material," Yassen said clinically.

"I don't see how killing someone is a punishment for an assassin."

"It is in your case. Dr Steiner was thorough in his evaluation. The board is aware of your … reluctance. One day, SCORPIA will expect you to make a statement," Yassen said.

"Then I'll deal with that when I have to."

Yassen nodded slowly. "Perhaps. And perhaps you misunderstand the point of a punishment. You were reckless and impulsive. Your decision got eight of SCORPIA's people killed." He kept his words vague enough not to condemn Alex should anyone be listening but they got the point across just fine. "Those flaws are expected in a teenager. They are unforgivable in an adult operative."

"I'm _fifteen!_ "

"You are a Malagosto graduate." Yassen's voice was utterly unyielding. "You are an adult in any way that counts. Do you believe the intelligence community still sees you as a child? Do you believe the board does? Your decision cost SCORPIA valuable resources. If I release you from your punishment, what will happen then? Will you have learned your lesson? I do not think so. You will remember this and believe you could once more evade the consequences if you were stubborn enough. I can assure you, this would not be the case."

It would not be the case because even if the board somehow decided to let him live through a second failure of that magnitude, Yassen would be ruthless in his punishment for Alex.

 _You've been trained like an adult, Orion. You'll be treated like one._

Daniels' words left a bitter taste in Alex's mouth now.

Yassen's hand closed like a vice around Alex's upper arm and pulled him across the room. Alex stumbled the last few steps to the man on bed. He didn't even try to resist. Yassen's grip was more steel than flesh and bone and the man had about fifteen years of experience to back it up as well. It reminded Alex uncomfortably of what he had done himself to get Hanna Graff moving again.

This close, Alex could hear a faint wheeze with every breath. Could see the cuts that were still bleeding slightly, the sickly undertone to his skin, and the pressure points that had turned bluish-purple from relentless abuse. He understood with horrible, sudden certainty that the man was alive because of him. This injured, this far gone – Dr Three had already extracted everything he needed from the man. In any other case, he would already have been disposed of. He had been kept alive specifically because Yassen had picked him for Alex's lesson. Alive and in pain, because there was no way Dr Three or his assistants would have bothered to give him anything in the way of painkillers or even rudimentary medical care.

Alex could feel the nausea now and swallowed against the taste of bile in the back of his mouth. Was that what Dr Three had gone to Julius Grief, before they had … disposed of him? A perfect doppelgänger of Alex, and Dr Three had taken him apart like he was just a particularly interesting lab rat. Alex didn't want to know what Dr Three had thought of that, and he would go a long way to avoid ever ending up in the man's hands again, but this …

It had been bad before with the memories of RTI. Now, with the knowledge of his clone's death as well … Alex had enough nightmares as it was. He was sure Dr Three would figure prominently now where Grief had been before.

"Please," Alex whispered, one last attempt to change Yassen's mind. He wasn't about to bring up Yassen's own reaction when Hunter had done the same to him, he wasn't suicidal, but however much Yassen might tell him otherwise, Alex was not above begging.

He caught a glimpse of the knife and clenched his fists tightly before Yassen could press the handle back into his hand.

"You know the alternative." Yassen's voice was deceptively calm. "I'm certain Dr Three will be delighted to have you under his care for another few weeks. It is not often he has research subjects as young as you available to him. You will only postpone the inevitable."

"I don't care. I won't do it." Alex somehow managed to keep his voice steady but he was fighting a losing battle against the tremor in his body and the memories of RTI. He didn't know how he would manage another two weeks or more with Dr Three but he didn't have a choice. He couldn't do this. He would just have to cope. Somehow. He wasn't sure what would happen when he kept refusing; all he knew was that he couldn't do it.

Yassen nodded slowly. "Very well."

There was a flash of sharp metal, of impossible speed and reflexes, and Alex jerked his head to the side the moment before the knife struck.

The man jerked once and was still. The nausea surged. Alex turned away and dry-heaved, his body racked by tremors from adrenaline and horror.

Yassen didn't speak and simply waited as the tremors passed and Alex finally straightened. It took Alex two tries to get his voice to work again.

"Dr Three, then," he said with resigned calm. It wasn't even a question. It was better to get it over with. Waiting wasn't going to make it any easier, experience had taught him that.

Inhuman blue eyes watched him as the seconds ticked on, cold and utterly unreadable. Alex just waited. He felt exhausted. Wrung out. Like he'd felt too many emotions, too many strong ones, and now he was just … numb.

"No," Yassen finally said. "I trust you have learned your lesson."

It was not a question. It was perfectly clear that any other answer than 'yes' was unacceptable. Alex looked at him, uncomprehending. "But -"

"You very nearly got yourself killed in a moment of impulsive foolishness and useless morals," Yassen told him, words low and cold. "See to it that it does not happen again. You are Orion, one of SCORPIA's assassins, and not the untrained child that MI6 used. If you give me any reason to doubt your reliability again, you will be left with Dr Three for however long it takes the lesson to sink in."

Alex nodded. He felt dizzy all of a sudden, the overwhelming surge of adrenaline and relief that overtook the numbness, and he reached out to support himself against the wall. Over. It was over. He wasn't going to spend another two weeks or more with Dr Three. The threat was still there, that if he became Alex the spy more than Orion the assassin, Yassen would fix that issue by whatever means necessary, but – not now. Yassen wasn't going to make him kill someone. Would he have, if Alex hadn't refused again and again? Had it all just been a careful act to terrify Alex into obedience?

"I hate you," Alex whispered. He was still trembling and dizzy. The floor still spun a little beneath his feet. He would have nightmares. And yet, even as he said the words, he knew there was a strange sort of mercy in Yassen's actions, too. A cruel, ruthless sort, but still. He could have done much worse to Alex and they both knew it.

"I am aware," Yassen replied.

Alex looked over and met Yassen's hard, blue eyes. There was something else, though. A slight softness to the words. Something in his eyes that wasn't entirely Cossack. Beneath the coldness, the utter lack of remorse, was a glimmer of something else. Faint resignation. Acceptance.

Understanding.

And as everything finally caught up with him, two full days of stress and anxiety and bone-deep fear, Alex broke down and cried.

* * *

A/N 3: Yassen is doing a very careful balancing act between ensuring Alex learns his lesson and not pushing him too far. A physical punishment would just leave him injured and a less effective operative while he healed. Psychological trauma would leave a much more lasting impression, and Yassen knows roughly how far he can push Alex. His punishment isn't quite over, though. Yassen is a patient man.

Next: Yassen does not appreciate the damage that Daniels did to Alex's training.


	33. Corrective Measures

A/N: I felt a little bad for leaving everyone with a chapter like the previous one, so this one is a little early since I'm ahead of schedule.

* * *

Alex wasn't surprised that he wasn't sent back to his hotel room in Dubai. Yassen had told him to pack for a reason. He couldn't bring himself to care either way, his mind still a mess from the lesson at Malagosto.

Instead of another hotel, Alex found himself in a large villa on the outskirts of Dubai. Yassen had driven them there, not one of the drivers that SCORPIA employed. Alex supposed that meant something, though he had no idea what that might be. The villa had enough beds for ten people, and a large pool to go with it. The inside was kept pleasantly chilled by air conditioning. Outside there were palm trees, one of them with several parakeets that watched their arrival intently. It was an obscene amount of space and luxury for the two of them, though Alex was still a little too numb to care.

He was starting to get used to it, too. The extremes between assignments and downtime, or even just individual assignments alone. From Alexander Owen's upper-class world to Alexei's life as a street kid and to the way that Orion was always booked for a luxury suite like it was the most natural thing in the world. Only the best for SCORPIA's top operatives. Yassen had cheated outrageously when he had claimed Alex as his partner and effectively bypassed all the normal assignments Alex would have been given to prove himself.

Alex also wasn't surprised to find Yassen's things already there. The man brought out several familiar bits of electronics and placed them on the table in front of Alex.

"This will be our home for the next week. Check it thoroughly. Ensure it is secure."

Check it for surveillance, for security issues, for anything that might be a danger – Yassen had a long list of checks that he had taught Alex, and while Alex tried to follow it, he wasn't nearly as good as he should be about it. Yassen probably knew that, too.

"All of it?" Alex asked, even though he knew the answer. It was a very large villa.

"All of it. If you fall short of standards, you will start over from scratch."

Alex wasn't even surprised and managed to keep back a sigh. It would take at least an hour, probably two. Yassen had to know that, too.

At least it would keep him busy for a while. Distracted.

Alex went about his task quietly. Yassen watched his every move, but neither of them spoke. Yassen was not a talkative person and Alex couldn't find it in him to break the silence.

In the end it took him close to three hours to finish the whole villa. Alex waited in the middle of the living room for Yassen's verdict, shifting a little awkwardly and not sure what to do with himself.

Finally Yassen nodded. "Acceptable."

Alex let out a slow breath. Nodded as well. "Thank you." He wasn't sure what to do. He had just betrayed SCORPIA and had somehow managed to survive the fallout. His decision had been directly responsible for the deaths of eight of their people and the injuries of two of Sagitta and several more of the guards.

And he was still alive. Alex still wasn't sure what to think about that. Yassen should have had every reason to leave him to sink or swim on his own once Alex had made his choice. Yassen had known his true motives for joining SCORPIA, or he'd had a pretty good suspicion at the very least, and while he hadn't mentioned anything, there was a big difference between treacherous thoughts and flat-out treason. He was still rattled from the lesson, punishment, whatever it had been, but he was alive.

It also made him realise how comfortable he had been around Yassen. It had been easy to forget the man was SCORPIA's best assassin for a reason. Sometimes Alex remembered but it was a theoretical thing. It was unnervingly easy to forget that this was the man who didn't even blink at Sayle's plan to kill a million children or more. An assassin with morals was useless.

Alex hadn't for a moment doubted that Yassen would have made him kill that man at Malagosto. Even now a part of him wasn't entirely convinced it wasn't just a trap and he would end up paying for his refusal later. Mercy was not in Yassen's nature. Neither was forgiveness, and sparing Alex weeks with Dr Three was dangerously close to both of those.

At the very least, he knew pulling off something like that again wouldn't be an option. He toed the line, or he did something spectacular enough that SCORPIA would have too much to worry about to ever trace it back to him. There would be no middle ground, and for now, 'toe the line' was the only way to survive.

It felt horribly like he had betrayed Yassen. The man hadn't been surprised – annoyed, but not surprised – so he had probably had a good idea of Alex's plan, but it still felt like betrayal.

Alex looked down, away from Yassen's cold, blue eyes, and found the tiled floor endlessly fascinating. There was a slight scuff mark on one of the tiles. Maybe it was embedded in the stone by now. Alex nudged it slightly with his foot.

He didn't hear Yassen move until the man gripped his chin lightly and raised his head again.

For a moment they just stood there. Then Alex closed his eyes briefly and sighed.

"I'm sorry. It was a mistake and – I'm sorry."

"Was it worth it?" Calm, simple curiosity, like it wasn't a discussion about dozens of lives cut short, from the guards to the research staff to the Graffs' people.

Alex looked away. Yassen lowered his hand again and let him.

"Alex." Yassen sounded weary. "Hunter was a double agent. He did an exceptional job. Yet SCORPIA still exists."

"Because they're useful to MI6 and the CIA and the FBI and anyone else who needs to get something done and not get their own hands dirty?" Alex asked bitterly. He had never thought of it like that but the words hit something deep inside of him, and hit it hard. His parents had died for that. Had been killed for that, and for what? SCORPIA was thriving, bigger than ever. For every head someone cut off, two more grew to take over.

"Very likely to begin with," Yassen agreed. "Perhaps if the intelligence community had acted sooner. Perhaps if someone had seen how large of a threat SCORPIA would become."

'SCORPIA', some detached, analytical part of Alex noticed. Not 'we'. Not 'they'. SCORPIA. Perfectly neutral. He knew that meant something, too.

"Even then," Yassen continued, "even with Hunter's trusted position, he did not have enough information to tear down an entire organisation, not even at its relatively smaller size. Even if MI6 had wished to act, they would have removed a claw, perhaps, but not the stinger. Not the brain."

Translation, small acts of rebellion – and what Alex had done on Santa Catarina counted, and he knew that now – would do nothing but put him at risk and very likely get him killed. If he was going to do it, he would need to tear out the very heart of SCORPIA, and he had no idea of how to do that. He didn't have access to that sort of information. He hadn't even met more than three of the members of the executive board.

It would take years to earn that sort of trust. Years and dozens, maybe hundreds of lives.

For the first time, Alex really understood the magnitude of the task he had taken on.

He didn't say that out loud, though he suspected Yassen knew where his thoughts were going, too. Instead he changed the subject, away from the potentially thin ice that was Hunter and on to less emotionally volatile things.

"I'm surprised they let me live."

Yassen was silent for a long time. "Despite their reputation, they are not entirely unforgiving," he eventually said. "To kill someone for a first mistake is the waste of a valuable resource in the case of someone like you. To leave the subject with a harsh punishment and the threat of next time ensures it will not happen again."

"Still. I figured Kurst would take any opportunity to get rid of me. He really doesn't like me."

"It was a combination of things. You repeatedly warned the client of the potential danger Daniels posed and made no attempt to hide your prior association with him. You had the opportunity to leave but stayed, even knowing the likely consequences. The board is well aware of the restrictions they placed on us in regards to Hart. And finally, you took full responsibility. You did not condemn another valuable SCORPIA resource like Marcus to save your own hide." Yassen hesitated. "Kurst does not appreciate the reminder of Hunter's betrayal. Hunter had a mission. He would have done whatever it took to complete it. He would have had no interest in taking responsibility if it was likely to result in his death. I believe your actions helped show you as different enough from your father that Kurst sees you as your own person now. It will not save you if you cross him, but he is at least neutral towards you now, I expect."

Alex believed it. Yassen had made it his business to know the board. It was protection for himself more than anything, the ability to predict any unfortunate turns of events early enough to get clear of the consequences, but still. Yassen understood them in a way that Alex didn't.

"So that's all I managed to do," Alex summed up, still bitter. "I nearly got Marcus and myself killed, I got a lot of blood on my hands, two injuries with Sagitta that are my fault, a drug that's only really been slowed down a little, but Kurst might think slightly longer before he decides to shoot me for being a clone of my father?"

 _Like Grief. Like – Julius._ Was he really any better now? He had probably killed more people than Julius Grief ever did, and he was likely to keep adding to that count. He hadn't enjoyed it like the clone would have, but did it really make a difference when he had gone right ahead and done it, anyway?

"Never a clone," Yassen murmured. "You are very much your own person. You learned a valuable lesson. And you earned Sagitta's unwavering loyalty. Do not doubt that Marcus shared what happened in that debriefing with his men. They know they owe their commander's life to a fifteen-year-old operative that expected to be shot for the failure."

There was the guilt again, dark and heavy. "It was my fault in the first place."

"Perhaps," Yassen agreed. "Most others would still have let them take the fall."

Another reminder that however much Yassen and Malagosto had tried to teach him otherwise, Alex Rider was not SCORPIA material at heart. He didn't want to kill, he refused to torture, and no matter how much he tried, he couldn't just … not care what happened to the world around him. He wasn't sure how his father had done it, but it had probably helped that he had been almost thirty at the time. SCORPIA prized the combination of Alex's young age and his training as an adult, but that didn't change the fact that he was fifteen and in way over his head. Maybe Nile would have been able to live up to that sort of standard at fifteen, but Alex couldn't.

"I can't … not be me," Alex said. It could have been an apology or defiance, and he wasn't even sure himself. "I know no one else seems to care about the drug or anything else SCORPIA has done. I can't look the other way."

"Then you will die."

Probably, and Alex had known that before he ever set foot in Malagosto. If not on a mission for SCORPIA somewhere, it would have been on a mission for MI6 or the CIA or whoever he had been lent out to that month. The odds that he would live to see adulthood were vanishingly small and he had accepted that, too.

Alex glanced at the room around them and forced himself to change the subject. They both knew how that discussion would go. "So is this our downtime?"

Yassen's expression shifted slightly into something a little more thoughtful. "This is necessary to gauge the damage that Daniels did. Do well enough, and you will have downtime afterwards."

Alex had several thin bruises on his arms from the zip ties. He somehow doubted that was what Yassen referred to. Then again, he didn't really need to understand, did he? Just follow orders.

His confusion must have shown because Yassen sighed. "Daniels was an unwanted complication and a direct threat to you. You have quite reliably been Orion on assignments. More reluctant to kill than other operatives, certainly, but you did your job and to acceptable standards. You have been more Alex Rider than Orion since your encounter with him. Reckless and impulsive."

 _This is unacceptable,_ Yassen did not need to say.

Not the physical damage, then, but how much of Yassen and Malagosto's careful training Ben Daniels had ruined by showing up – and in the process digging up a lot of MI6 memories that Alex had been quite happy to ignore.

Yassen was right. Alex had been Orion since Malagosto. He had followed orders. He had killed when told to. He hadn't even hesitated after Nice and Singapore. He couldn't have done that a year ago. He had killed, sometimes through collateral damage and sometimes deliberately, and he knew that now, even if he hadn't been willing to consciously accept it before. Still, MI6's Alex would never have been able to shoot someone in cold blood.

Most of Alex's targets hadn't been a threat to him. They had been human beings he had been paid to kill for reasons that were none of his business. Laurence Wright hadn't even been an enemy operative. He had been an undercover agent, and not even a potentially dangerous one like John Rider had been. Alex had seen his file. The man was more accountant than secret agent.

Alex would have refused MI6 if they had told him to do the same. If they had sent him off with the specific instructions to kill someone, no matter how horrible of a human being that person was or the sort of mass murdering plans they were involved with. Stop the plans, sure. Kill them in self defence or to stop them when there was no other way, yes. Sent off as an assassin? No.

Five months with Yassen and another three at Malagosto had been all it had taken. Alex Rider wasn't a killer but SCORPIA's Orion – young, skilled, lethal – most definitely was.

Ben Daniels had stirred up a lot of unwanted memories. Yassen clearly planned to fix that.

"You could have been killed, Alex," Yassen said quietly. "You very nearly were. What were you thinking?"

Alex swallowed. "That I had to stop the drug." Collier and the memories of Sarov, of blood and cold and water, and Alex found himself talking again before he even thought about it. "I saw General Sarov shoot himself when he realised his plan wouldn't work. When I threw the key card to the bomb into the water and told him I'd rather die than have a father like him – he shot himself. Collier ..."

"Alex ..." His name was little more than a sigh from Yassen's lips.

"I had to stop it," Alex repeated. "I couldn't – I had to. I never wanted to go on missions for MI6, either, but when I discovered what was going on and there was no one else around to stop it … I couldn't do nothing. I couldn't do nothing now, either."

"SCORPIA has copies of the research. Most likely Samantha Graff does, too, as … insurance. You can't stop it just by destroying the lab and the funding. You can only slow it down."

"I can try," Alex said stubbornly. "I know all I managed to do was slow it down, I know that now, but I had to try."

 _And I won't give up_ , he didn't say, because they both knew that, too.

"Perhaps." Yassen's voice gave nothing away. "Go change. Close combat training starts in ten minutes."

Ten minutes, and if he wasn't ready, Yassen had no qualms about hunting him down. Alex nodded once and hurried upstairs, already counting down the minutes in his mind.

* * *

They settled into a not-quite-routine for the week. It felt weirdly like being back in Russia, just with much warmer weather and fewer trees. Workout, close combat training, a short daily drive to a nearby shooting range – not the one at Malagosto, probably because Yassen didn't want them to have company – and several hours every day where the language of choice was Arabic. Sometimes they talked. Sometimes those talks were closer to interrogations. Alex didn't really mind either way.

It felt familiar. Comfortable.

Alex slept better than he had expected. He still had nightmares sometimes, of Daniels and Blunt, or Yassen at Malagosto, or – once – that his choice on the island had managed to get everyone killed. Not just those eight guards, but Sagitta, and Yassen, and Hanna and Johann -

That one stuck with him long after he woke up again. He had been lucky, they had all been lucky. He had been stupid and impulsive and could have gotten all of them killed. If – when – he did it again, he would have to plan it right. Take everything into account. SCORPIA had made him Orion. They had taught him how to think like an assassin and operative. He would need to use that against them. The lessons from Yassen and Malagosto wouldn't be enough, they would expect something like that if someone betrayed them, but combined with Alex's own training from Ian … it would be just different enough to work. Different enough to be too unpredictable to plan for.

Alex wasn't sure if that had been Yassen's intended result when he decided to teach him that lesson at Malagosto, but that was what he would get.

It wasn't all physical workout interspaced with talks, either.

Alex never really thought much about the fact that his normal education had been cut short at fourteen by SCORPIA. He was only really reminded when he thought about Tom every now and then, or when Yassen brought him textbooks to work on when they had the time. Malagosto was used to adult students and focused on practical courses. Useful things for an assassin and operative.

He never really considered it, not until Yassen made him write a thorough report on their assignment and the disaster that had been the end of it.

It was an entirely new way to write things, and while he had tried similar at Malagosto, this was much longer than anything he had been expected to write there. A number of the words and concepts were familiar only through Malagosto's classes. Alex was pretty sure that military strategy wasn't on the curriculum at Brookland. Yassen had handled it for the other assignments they had been on. This was the first time he had made Alex do it, too.

Afterwards, Yassen had read it through for any sign that Alex had accidentally incriminated himself. It was a careful balancing act between keeping it consistent with the other reports the board would receive and not draw unwanted attention to Alex.

"What happened with the Graffs?" Alex eventually asked. He had mentally debated if he should but he knew he had to. He kept thinking about Hanna and Johann.

Yassen arched an eyebrow. "The assignment is over. Does it matter?"

Alex opened his mouth to answer. Closed it again without speaking. He supposed Yassen was right. It didn't matter, did it? SCORPIA wasn't MI6. It wasn't his business.

His acquiescence seemed to have been what Yassen was looking for, because the man nodded slightly in approval.

"Graff is quite capable of covering her tracks. By this point, I assume she and her two children have settled into hiding somewhere beyond the reach of overly curious governments. Even if someone should target the company – and that would be exceedingly unlikely – she would have enough resources hidden away to manage quite well."

Intel as a reward for good behaviour. Alex wasn't even surprised. He wondered briefly what would have happened if he had left on that chopper or, even early, if SCORPIA had agreed to sell his contract. Where he would be by now. Then he dismissed the thought again. There was no point in wondering about that.

Alex hesitated. "MI6 ..."

He didn't need to finish the question. "There has been nothing from them," Yassen responded. "It is not in their own best interest to make your actions widely known. As far as they are concerned, they have a potential weakness they can exploit in SCORPIA now. If they reveal what happened, they are well aware that it could get you killed. They do likely want you dead, but the idea of a potential double agent with SCORPIA is far more valuable to them. Certainly when the board would have little reason to believe that version of events after MI6 attempted to set you up through the clone already. It would be seen as merely another way to get you killed."

"Unless our conversation got recorded," Alex said.

"True," Yassen agreed. "But even that can easily be faked. Consider it a valuable lesson."

 _And do not do it again._

Message received. Loud and clear.

* * *

Alex's opinion of Daniels and the events on Santa Catarina got progressively more resentful over the week. Yassen's questions didn't help. Neither did the report he had to write, the other reports of the mission that Yassen forced him to read through, or the hours of workout with no distraction but his own thoughts.

Part of him knew Yassen had to have planned it like that. Terrify him enough that he would listen, and then proceed to show him the exact consequences of what he had done. Most of him didn't care, not by then. He had been resentful of MI6 and their treatment of him ever since that first mission. This was really just a reminder of the many reasons he had to hate them.

"What did you expect would happen?" Yassen asked four days into their stay. He sounded genuinely bemused, in a Yassen sort of way.

Alex was silent for a long time. "I don't know," he finally admitted. "I guess I expected him to escape with the information, return to Blunt, and then MI6 would do something."

Yassen remained silent. Eventually it became too much for Alex and he continued.

"I didn't expect him to have backup. I thought he would just leave. MI6 didn't bother with backup for me. Not at Cornwall and definitely not at Point Blanc. The CIA wasn't much better." His words sounded bitter, even to himself. "If that had been me instead of Daniels, I would have had to find my own way off of the island. The best backup I've ever had is Sagitta, and half of them are wanted criminals."

They hadn't had to come back for him when Daniels caught him. Maybe he was their superior and Cossack's apprentice, but they hadn't had to come back for him. The moment something had seemed wrong, Marcus had reacted. Alex tried to imagine MI6's response in that same situation, and it wasn't a pretty one.

Right there and then, Alex would have traded every last one of Smithers' gadgets to have had Sagitta at his back in Point Blanc. He missed Smithers. He had loved the gadgets and still did. But he would still have traded them in a heartbeat for reliable, competent backup that he knew he could trust with his life. They would have been there the moment he gave the signal. They wouldn't have ignored it and left him to escape from a gruesome death on his own.

"You're an investment to SCORPIA. That gives significant incentive to keep you alive and unharmed," Yassen finally said. "You arrived into MI6's hands already trained. You were a convenient weapon to them but not an investment in the same way. There was no evidence linking you to them. They did not spend months or years training you to their requirements. And if you got killed … well, the death of a child might give them sufficient excuse to investigate matters officially."

Matter-of-fact and utterly emotionless. Alex had always appreciated that Yassen didn't sugarcoat things but it was still enough to send a shiver down his spine. That sounded just like the way Blunt would have thought. He didn't doubt for a second that Yassen was right. Daniels had been trained by the army followed by the SAS, and MI6 had probably added even more training to that. He was an investment in a way that Alex had never been. Sometimes he got the impression that Mrs Jones felt a little bad for the way they used him but when it all came down to it, he was expendable. He wasn't someone MI6 really cared about. He wasn't one of theirs.

What did it say about Blunt that SCORPIA for the most part treated him better than MI6 ever had?

"Intelligence agencies will use whatever means they must to see the job done. MI6 exists to protect the UK and her interests. You no longer count as one of those," Yassen pointed out, perfectly honest and all the more ruthless for it. "Daniels did his job. Personal feelings have no place in that sort of career. It served MI6 better to have you brought in alive, so those are the orders he followed. If they had wanted you dead, he would have killed you. The fact that you spared his life would have meant nothing to a properly trained agent, and MI6 is more ruthless than most."

Alex felt a chill, the close brush of death, and realised once more just how lucky he had been to escape with his life.

Yassen let him consider that before he continued. "You are not a child to the intelligence community anymore. You are a contract killer, amoral and loyal only to your current client. Next time -"

He didn't need to finish the sentence. Alex did it for him.

"- I'll take the shot," he agreed and meant it.

* * *

The week in the villa might have been meant as a chance for Yassen to assess the damage Daniels had caused, but it felt more like a small break to Alex. He knew most people probably wouldn't agree that hard work and the constant company of Yassen Gregorovich counted as a break, but he enjoyed it.

It reminded him of his training in Russia, and he had genuinely liked those months he spent in that small cabin in the middle of nowhere.

He was sad to see the week come to an end. Yassen undoubtedly knew, but neither of them commented on it.

Yassen, being Yassen, stuck to the practical things.

"You are responsible for cleaning this place," he told Alex on the morning of their last day in the villa.

Not just actual cleaning, Alex knew, but the removal of any and all evidence that they had been there, right down to fingerprints. If checking the villa when they arrived had been a long, tedious process, the cleaning would be three times as bad.

He didn't argue, though. Just nodded and set to work right after breakfast. He took a break for their daily workout, because nothing short of physical injuries would make Yassen ease up on that, but other than that, Alex did nothing that day but clean. One room after another, slow and meticulous under Yassen's watchful eye.

It was well into the afternoon by the time Alex could finally pack away the last things and collapse on the couch.

He was exhausted and even with gloves on for the whole thing, his hands still felt dry and rough.

He had done a good job, though, and Yassen confirmed that with a small nod. It might have been Alex's imagination, but he thought the man looked a little satisfied, too. Pleased, maybe, that his student had been that attentive.

Yassen handed him a small phone. "You have a week of downtime."

Right. Do well enough, Yassen had told him that first day, and apparently he had. Alex pocketed the phone. "So what are we doing?"

"Whatever you decide," Yassen said. "I have business to see to. The week is yours, however you wish to spend it. You have a passport and money, and I will leave a laptop for you. I assume you will find something to do. You have the run of this place until tomorrow. I recommend you stick to one room tonight to have less to clean tomorrow. Report at Malagosto in time for breakfast in eight days. I do expect you to remember your lessons and keep up your training."

Of course. That went without saying. Alex had a horrible suspicion that if his check and cleaning of the villa hadn't been done to Yassen's satisfaction, he would have spent that week of downtime in a very different way and definitely not on his own.

"So I get a week on my own, just like that?" Alex asked.

"I trust you to be sensible." Yassen's expression softened a bit. "SCORPIA considers you an adult, as does the intelligence community. You have experienced the downsides already. This is one of the advantages. You are an adult, with an adult's rights and responsibilities. How you wish to spend your downtime and money is none of SCORPIA's business, as long as you do not become a threat to their investments."

"I'm fifteen," Alex said, not sure how to respond. MI6 had switched between the two extremes. Old enough to be sent off to his possible death. Too young for a gun, and conveniently young enough to still be a minor that could be controlled when they needed it. SCORPIA … they considered him an adult. Even in this. It felt both overwhelming and a little unnerving, and … just a little exhilarating. A week on his own. No rules and no restrictions except common sense. He would probably be lonely, and he knew that even now, but still.

"Sixteen according to your passport, and with the money to make any minor issues go away. Even with your debt to Malagosto mostly paid off, you will still have plenty for whatever you wish to do for the week."

Blood money, Alex knew. It still didn't make the reminder that MI6 had never once paid him go away.

"Think about it," Yassen said, more an order than a suggestion. "Decide what you wish to do. The week is yours, however you wish to spend it."

And for the first time in more than a year, Alex Rider had actual free time and not a clue about what to do with it.

* * *

Next: Unfinished business.


	34. Conclusions

Yassen left that evening. The villa, already enormous for two people, felt abruptly very large and very empty. Alex didn't doubt Yassen had planned it like that. Even if Alex hadn't felt like doing something, the fact that the villa was so huge and empty meant that he wasn't likely to try and arrange to stay the full week there. He would be forced to interact with the outside world.

For the first time in a year, Alex had no idea of what to do. The last time he had been given time to himself, completely alone had been … a while. The day off in Panama City had been with Aranda. He had spent the three days of downtime after Miami asleep in his room. The week after Singapore had been spent with Yassen, and any time Yassen had not been present in the safe-house in Russia, there had been a lot of unspoken expectations of how Alex would spend his time.

He had an entire week now and an identity complete with a passport. It was a test; he knew it and he had come to accept that most things were, but … a week. An entire week to himself.

It was too long to just stay hidden in a hotel room and sleep, and Alex already felt restless at the thought. He wanted to do something and he had a week to do it in.

He wanted to do something that had nothing to do with SCORPIA or MI6 or the CIA or his new career, and he had the money to do it. Yassen had prioritised that Alex got his debt from Malagosto paid off as fast as possible, but even then he had a decent amount in his bank account.

He wondered what other operatives did. It wasn't like that sort of career left much room for personal possessions. Attachments were something that could be used against you.

The thought of skiing felt tainted after Point Blanc. So did diving after the thing with the CIA, but he had enjoyed it by the Florida Keys. Of course, Yassen had been there, too, which had helped. He wasn't sure he would enjoy it as much on his own, with the memories of Dr Three and the bone-deep fear of drowning. Europe was out of the question, it was too close to MI6, and he didn't want to travel too far, not when he only had a week.

In the end, Alex left the next morning and spent five days in a resort by the Red Sea. He had booked it the night before and less than a day later, he was on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula. Money, he had learned, solved a lot of problems before they ever became an issue.

Alex spent those five days doing nothing. He lounged by the pool and the beach, worked out in the air conditioned gym, had ice cream for lunch, tried the various restaurants, and slept as much as his body would let him. Sometimes he dreamt. Sometimes he had nightmares. And sometimes he just slept, deep and peaceful, and woke up much more clear-headed for it.

He picked a hotel room that Cossack would have found acceptable, kept up with the long list of things to keep in mind for a sensibly paranoid assassin, carried two combat knives everywhere because he couldn't bring his guns, but beyond that he was just … Alex. Normal for a little while.

He was nothing special; just one more tourist among many. He was sixteen, French, and off on his own for the first time. His parents were well-to-do but busy, and no one questioned it.

Alex spoke with more people those five days than he had in months. The other tourists, the staff, the few locals he met. It still felt lonely, even when he kept busy. He had a cover to keep and the number of people in the world he could be completely honest with these days hovered between zero and one, depending on his view of Yassen at any given moment.

He wondered if it would ever get easier. If he would ever just … get used to it. Accept the loneliness as part of his life. How did Yassen do it? Alex doubted it would be a good idea to ask.

It was a little like travelling with Ian again, the foreign location and the time spent doing useful stuff, but there was no one to share it with. No one to talk about the pool or the huge suite or the fantastic food with. He wondered one evening what Jack would have thought of the place, sprawling and luxurious and expensive, but pushed the thought away before he could linger on it.

Jack had her own life now. He had no right to think of her as family anymore. He was SCORPIA's and he had made that choice the instant he had accepted Yassen's offer so many months ago in London. If he tried to hold on to her, she would be in danger. If not from SCORPIA, then definitely from MI6.

It didn't change the fact that he missed her. Missed her and Tom and the life he'd had, boring and ordinary and pretty predictable as long as Ian Rider hadn't been involved.

Alex rested, and he spent a long time alone with his thoughts.

It wasn't just a week of downtime. The moment he had settled down in the hotel room he had picked himself, in the resort he had chosen, he realised what Yassen had done.

If Alex was through with SCORPIA, if he decided to run, he would have a full week of head start. He had his tracker, sure, but he knew where it was and it would be easy to remove. There might be another one injected that actually transmitted his location, he had no way to know, but even that didn't have to be a problem. One call to Joe Byrne, and Alex would be in CIA custody within a day. The tracker was created by an American agency; the Americans would know how to spot them. If Alex stayed right where he was, SCORPIA wouldn't even be suspicious.

If Alex wanted to leave, Yassen had given him the best opportunity he would get. Money, passport, and a full week of freedom. No one to watch him. No one to dodge. He had shown Alex the worst sides of his new life as one of SCORPIA's assassins, proceeded to do his best to get Alex's training back on track, and then … he had let Alex go. Given him a week of freedom to make that choice, for better or for worse.

If Alex stayed, he knew what he was getting into. He didn't doubt there would be some test or another, just so Yassen could make sure he was dealing with Orion again. If he ran … he would need help to stay ahead of SCORPIA, but he had been given the opportunity now. He didn't have enough intel to bargain for his freedom, not really, but maybe he had enough to stay out of Blunt's hands.

There would be no guarantee, though. If he went to the CIA or FBI or whoever he decided to take his chances with now, he wouldn't be a successful double agent with enough intel to destroy SCORPIA. He would be a criminal on the run because he had decided that maybe being a criminal wasn't for him. He had killed a lot of people and done very little to make up for it.

Staying with Yassen and SCORPIA … he knew what was expected of him. Maybe they would let him get away with not torturing or interrogating anyone, but they trained an assassin and expected him to do his job.

It could take years to earn the sort of trust that would let him gain the intel needed to actually strike at the heart of SCORPIA.

Give up and cut his losses, or go with the pragmatic approach he had come to accept over the months, that what happened to one agent, even a child, mattered little when the ultimate result might be the complete destruction of SCORPIA. He would finish what his father had started. Take down the organisation that had killed his parents.

Put that way, it was barely a decision at all.

SCORPIA, then. SCORPIA and Yassen and whatever test would be waiting for him. He would be Orion for as long as he had to. If he was going down, he would take all of SCORPIA with him.

On the way back to Malagosto, Alex visited Jarek and Adams at one of SCORPIA's bases. Sagitta had arrived back from leave the day before. The visit had taken a little more planning – Alex had needed to call Yassen for permission and the actual information as to where they were – but even that wasn't really a problem. A detour and a hitched ride with a helicopter that was bound for the same base solved the problem of transportation.

With two of Sagitta's seven members out of commission for a good while – one of them the second in command, even – the rest of them would be dealing with smaller jobs until they were back to full strength again. There was no point in training up two new people just for a few months. The rest of the team had already been sent off again. Even Jarek and Adams had assignments lined up. True, they were physically out of commission for a while, but SCORPIA took the opportunity to send them back to school of sorts for a while. Adams for another month with their surveillance specialists, and Jarek for a brush-up demolitions course.

"I went through sniper school already," Jarek explained over bland but not entirely inedible food. He favoured his right arm but seemed to manage quite well with his left instead. It hadn't been a direct shot, just a graze, but it was still a deep one. It had taken most of the two weeks to heal enough to remove the bandages, and now it was a vicious-looking half-healed thing on his arm. It would scar something fierce. "Demolitions was more of a learn-on-the-job thing. It's kind of your fault, actually."

 _Your fault_. Alex's heart skipped a beat and adrenaline went haywire for several seconds until he realised that wasn't what Jarek meant. "Me?"

"SCORPIA was pretty happy with our abilities until you took an interest in us. Once you did, that drew SCORPIA's attention, too. If we were shaping up to be the preferred combat team of Yassen Gregorovich's partner and apprentice, we needed a bit more training, apparently." Adams this time. The man shrugged carefully. Alex felt a sympathy twinge in his own ribs. "We don't mind at all, it's all going to be an asset, but they probably wouldn't have bothered if you hadn't decided we were yours."

"... I think it was more like a mutual decision," Alex muttered, his food suddenly incredibly interesting.

Adams laughed. "Didn't say we minded, did I? And yeah, you're probably right." He reached across the table and ruffled Alex's hair and Alex looked up, startled by the casual touch. "You're ours, too."

Sagitta had always been a bit more casual with him without Yassen around, but something had changed since he had last seen them. Alex suspected that Yassen had been right like usual, and that Marcus had told his team about the debriefing. They had come for him when he had been in trouble, and he had planted himself firmly between their commander and Zeljan Kurst's sadistic mood in return. It had been his fault in the first place, and he owed them, but still … it meant something, didn't it? He hadn't let them take the fall for it.

Was this what it should have been like that week and a half in SAS training, if he had been with a unit that actually liked him?

He shouldn't get attached and he knew that, but it was far too late for that. Alex Rider had been alone for a long time. He'd had no one but Yassen for five months, and then not even that for most of his time at Malagosto.

Whatever SCORPIA and everyone else might have decided, he wasn't an adult. He was fifteen, and he was lonely. He had Yassen – Yassen, who had lied for him and protected him – but he had no one else. No one he wouldn't put into danger the moment he contacted them.

Would it really be that horrible if he let himself get a little closer to Sagitta? He couldn't be honest with them, not really, but they could still be acquaintances. Friends, maybe, one day.

It was probably a mistake, especially with the plans still lingering in the back of Alex's mind, but for now he let himself be swept away by easy conversation and the camaraderie that had grown from weeks on Santa Catarina and the disaster that followed. It wasn't home, it would never be home, but it was close enough for now.

* * *

Alex Rider reported at Malagosto at seven-thirty in the morning with a duffel bag with the essentials and nothing else. He hadn't been told to but it didn't hurt. The rest was locked away in storage until he knew how the immediate future would look. He was not surprised that there had been a perfectly anonymous white Mercedes waiting for him when he left his hotel.

Alex was met by one of Dr Three's silent assistants. That was not a good sign but there wasn't much Alex could do about it. Instead he followed along in silence as the man led him to the main dining room. The vast room was almost full. Alex had expected that. The students were back from their morning run, and just about all of the staff and whatever guests that happened to stay at the school tended to join in at breakfast. There was a lot going on in the evenings sometimes, but breakfast was usually the time to meet and be social.

The assistant led him through the room to the staff tables where most of the faculty of sorts was gathered. Alex was aware of the looks he drew but didn't acknowledge them. There was no one he knew. A few he vaguely remembered from the brief visit after Miami but that was all. Greer and Osborn were gone, presumably sent off on their graduation assignment sometime since Alex last visited two weeks ago.

D'Arc looked delighted to see him again and waved him over, even if the assistant's intentions in that regard hadn't been abundantly clear.

"Alex! It's a delight to see you again, truly it is. And such a tan! You've been relaxing, I hear?"

"Yes, sir. It probably wasn't the most useful way to spend my downtime, but I needed it," Alex agreed. He hated the way he had to phrase everything in SCORPIA terms but he knew enough to play the game and know he couldn't afford to slip up. He didn't want his downtime to be 'useful'. He wanted his downtime to have nothing to do with SCORPIA, but that wasn't something he could say out loud.

He also wasn't surprised SCORPIA knew exactly what he had been up to. That was to be expected by now.

Before Alex could start to wonder if Yassen really planned to leave him on his own, the man appeared at the wide double doors as well. He drew even more looks than Alex did and utterly ignored it with his usual stoic indifference to the people around him.

Alex was a lot more relieved to see him than he probably should have been.

"And Yassen!" D'Arc greeted Yassen just as enthusiastically when the man settled down as well. "Punctual as always."

Yassen just nodded slightly, never the chattiest of people on a good day. Glanced at Alex. Nodded slightly in greeting, too. "Alex."

"Sir," Alex replied. It was Malagosto and with a lot of people around them. It didn't hurt to be respectful. He was still Yassen's subordinate, however polite the man might be about it.

When Alex had first arrived at Malagosto, he had looked at Yassen's perfect indifference to the students and wondered what it felt like to know you were the deadliest thing in a room full of predators. Alex wasn't anywhere near the most dangerous thing around but sitting at one of the staff tables, he thought he had a faint idea of what it might be like.

The looks Alex himself had received his first day at Malagosto had been blatantly curious. Calculating, too, but generally mostly curious about the fourteen-year-old that Yassen Gregorovich had just left in Malagosto's dubious care. The looks he got now were … wary more than anything. Cautious. He was fifteen years old, seated at one of the staff tables, and known as Cossack's hand-picked and personally trained partner and apprentice. He had nothing on Yassen himself, or Nile or Professor Yermalov for that matter, but he had still somehow over the months become someone to be cautious around.

Alex filled his plate and let the low murmur of voices and conversations wash over him. He wasn't sure if he really wanted to eat but he knew better than to skip food. He had gone hungry often enough on his assignments for some reason or another.

He still wondered sometimes at how comfortable he felt at the school. Then again, he had never had any really bad experiences there. Dr Three's lessons and RTI training, sure, but other than that a large part of him had genuinely enjoyed his months at Malagosto when he managed to ignore what they were training him for. Not everything he learned was something he was comfortable with, but a lot of the classes had been interesting. He had liked the workout. He had been in a lot of pain after some of Professor Yermalov's lessons, but he had learned a lot from it. He had enjoyed scuba diving and climbing and everything else the instructors had put them through. Even the brutal pace was familiar and almost soothing, with the memories of the safe-house in Russia and leaving precious little time to think about his future.

Malagosto was home, in its own strange way. In the same way that the safe-house in Russia and his cabin on the _Fer de Lance_ were. Not really a home but the closest thing he had to it these days.

"- Horrible business with that client, of course, though I wasn't surprised to hear she showed an interest in Orion's permanent placement with them," d'Arc said. It didn't take Alex more than a few seconds to realise he was talking about Samantha Graff. "I certainly can't fault her judgement in employees. Orion really is a remarkable child."

"I believe she was hoping to set Alex up with her daughter as an additional bonus," Yassen said dryly. "Though I suppose given the severity of a new graduate's contract, it would be more along the lines of an arranged marriage."

"Perhaps," d'Arc agreed. "That could have been an exceptionally useful match, though. The reach SCORPIA could have had through him … I suppose it doesn't matter now. Perhaps later. I don't think any of us considered just how many new venues we would have open to us with an operative as young and talented as Orion."

And now they were talking about his wedding. It was like listening to old, gossiping aunts, except they were armed killers and only looked like old ladies if they were in disguise.

… Which in turn made Alex envision Yassen in old-lady disguise, and his mind quickly found something else to occupy itself with, before the resident mind-reader picked up on it and felt a sudden urge to punish Alex for something vague but undoubtedly well-deserved.

Alex listened to the conversations around him but he didn't speak much. He answered when spoken to, but for the most part d'Arc talked plenty for all of them. Ross settled down for a little while to catch up before he was off again to prepare for the day's lesson. Jet smiled at him from her own table but stayed where she was, deep in conversation with Dr Javadi.

It was nice. Cosy. It was a very nice distraction from any unwanted thoughts of why Yassen had brought him here again, too. Alex expected a test of some sort but he still preferred not to think about it until he had to.

Eventually breakfast ended. The students vanished for their first lesson. The staff lingered a little longer before they left as well. Yassen got up and Alex followed him without any need for instructions.

They met Dr Three outside, clearly on his way back to his own domain. The doctor didn't care much for socialising but he did seem to enjoy the climate, even the high summer temperatures. He had mentioned once that a morning walk helped put the thoughts in order. Alex wasn't that surprised that the man preferred to stay in the peace and quiet of his own quarters. He could imagine it got awkward sometimes with a board member present at the staff tables. No one ever entirely forgot that the unassuming man had the power to have any one of them killed on the spot if that happened to suit him. No one ever entirely forgot that this was one of the world's most pre-eminent experts in torture and interrogation.

Yassen didn't look surprised at the meeting. Neither did Dr Three. Alex suspected it had been planned already. That was confirmed when Yassen stepped into place next to the older man and followed him without a word. Alex had no choice but to follow as well.

Alex didn't ask but then, he didn't need to. Cool, blue eyes glanced at him and read the unspoken question.

"We have unfinished business before our next assignment," Yassen said.

There were only a few kinds of 'unfinished business' that required a visit to Malagosto as well as Dr Three's assistance that Alex could think of and none of them were nice. Alex nodded and felt anxiety settle in a tight knot in his chest. He had expected a test. He hadn't expected it quite this soon.

It was a familiar walk to Dr Three's … clinic, domain, dungeons, Alex wasn't sure what to call it but probably all of the above. Alex was ignored by both Yassen and the doctor in question, caught up in their own conversation. The fact that Alex himself was the topic of said discussion mattered little to the two.

"It was unfortunate that the agent escaped," Dr Three remarked. "He could have been a useful source of information."

"We should have killed him on sight," Yassen disagreed. He was probably one of the few operatives with the balls to do that … and the seniority to get away with it. "He destroyed the operation and pushed back Orion's training by a significant amount. The damage has been handled but Orion was rattled by the encounter."

"Quite understandable," Dr Three agreed. "He came close to ending up in MI6's possession again and he is very young. It is perhaps too easy to forget sometimes. He behaves like any well-trained operative. On that note, several of my esteemed colleagues on the board have expressed an interest in your training methods. Perhaps it may be possible to carry them over to Malagosto's training. A number of our newly graduated operatives could benefit from a healthy amount of humility and understanding of their unique position."

"He was young enough to be able to adapt and I had exceptional potential to work with." High praise from Yassen and all but flat-out saying that he probably couldn't replicate the success. He was probably right. Alex really couldn't see Yassen put up with another student with the same patience he had shown Alex himself. They had been very unusual circumstances.

Dr Three made a hummed sound of agreement.

The door to the building was familiar, too. As was the soft sound as it closed behind them.

"We'll discuss it further another time," Dr Three said. "Your lesson is in the second cell."

Yassen nodded slightly. "Doctor," he greeted. He didn't need to give any instructions to Alex, who knew perfectly well to follow Yassen down the hallway to those painfully familiar cells.

Alex could almost feel Dr Three watching him, analysing his every reaction. It was not a pleasant feeling, and he almost welcomed the turn around a corner, down the hallway to the actual holding cells.

Yassen unlocked the second one. Alex stepped inside without an argument.

There was a man duct taped to a chair, mouth taped shut and eyes wide and terrified. He was breathing fast and looked pale, and a detached part of Alex noted the man wasn't getting quite enough air from breathing through his nose alone. Not with the sort of near-hyperventilating he was doing.

There were meticulous cuts on him and strategically placed bruises, but all in all he was in a lot better shape than the original victim Yassen had picked for him. And this was another target for him, Alex didn't need to be told that to get the point.

Yassen didn't speak. Merely brought out a familiar Grach and handed it to Alex.

He accepted it without a word. Part of him wasn't even surprised but went through the usual check of the gun that was second nature by now. He doubted Yassen would have given him a faulty weapon, but he still couldn't rule it out. It could be part of the test. If nothing else, it was a good habit.

Gun in order, Alex glanced at Yassen. All he got in response was an arched eyebrow and a pointed look.

That wasn't a surprise, either. Mercy was not in Yassen's nature. He had been forgiving once. Now he obviously wanted to be sure he was dealing with Orion again. That the encounter with Ben Daniels hadn't irrevocably destroyed the progress he had made with Alex. It wasn't a punishment like the knife had been. It was a test, and probably proof to the board that Alex was still useful. Yassen had been able to excuse anything unusual with the close brush with MI6. Now that excuse had run out.

Alex had tried to bargain for a gun. He had that now, and he knew better than to fail Yassen's expectations.

Ramos' test subject had been different. The man had been dying already and Alex had been certain the gun was loaded with blanks. This time, he knew without the shadow of doubt that the rounds were real. The target was in a lot better shape, but he was just as dead. Dr Three did not leave his victims alive.

It reminded him horribly of Singapore and Crux's victim. He didn't doubt Yassen had done that on purpose.

Alex didn't allow himself to think. He let instincts take over, months of constant training, raised the gun and fired in one, smooth motion. Like Yassen himself had done in that basement in Singapore months ago.

The sound of the gunshot was deafening. For that brief instance, Alex's entire world was noise, so overwhelming it felt like a physical thing. Then it was over. The man was still. The smell of gun smoke lingered in the room. Yassen took the Grach from Alex's unresisting hands.

Alex felt numb. Tired.

Yassen didn't speak but the gentleness in his motions as he retrieved the gun spoke volumes to Alex. Approval. Regret that it was necessary, maybe, but no regret for the fact that he had made Alex do it in the first place.

When Yassen finally spoke, the quiet words felt almost like sacrilege in the silence.

"I trust you have learned your lesson."

There was only one acceptable answer Alex could give.

"Yes, sir," he agreed.

Toe the line until he could take down everything. If he wanted to survive as Alex Rider and not Orion, that was the only way to do it.

* * *

A/N: I swear, the story was a lot less dark when I originally plotted it out. It got a bit darker than expected.

Next: Another set of outside POVs.


	35. Interlude: Echoes

A/N: I think I managed to cover a number of the requests. I had to cut one of the snippets – Kurst and Dr Three after the check of Alex's tracker – because it contained spoilers.

Also, uh, happy 200k anniversary? Thank you for still reading and for being patient with this beast!

* * *

Crux had heard whispers of Cossack's apprentice. Cossack himself was a cold man. Harsh and merciless; the best SCORPIA had ever trained. Any child that could meet his exacting standards would be worth keeping an eye on.

Alex Rider – the newly christened Orion – had arrived straight from his graduation assignment. With most operatives it was a turning point in their career, proof of their skills and place in the hierarchy. With Orion, graduation seemed more like an afterthought to SCORPIA. It was something to pass but nothing to linger on since the boy and his mentor had been assigned to the heart of a major operation on the brink of failure immediately after.

SCORPIA had never doubted his skills. They had already planned his next assignment before they ever knew if he would complete his first.

Crux wasn't sure what she had expected. She had little experience with children that young but he wasn't really one, anyway. More like a very young adult in a conveniently harmless-looking package.

The boy that greeted her was a little overwhelmed by the whole experience, though he hid it quite well, and he played his role without a single misstep. He listened attentively to her lessons, followed instructions, and never once complained about the workload they had been given. She was used to it, of course, as was Cossack. Malagosto kept to a harsh schedule, true, but real operations were simply not something that training could have prepared anyone for. Alex Rider was exhausted, that was plainly obvious to Crux, but he went about his day and did his job to the best of his ability, stressed and sleep-deprived and all. His young age and need for sleep worked against him, but he did what he could to work around it. A little squeamish about torture but that was really a minor issue, and he was a growing boy. He would learn.

A very young adult, indeed.

One evening she handed him a sleek, expensive gown and taught him the basics of tango to get him used to moving in heels. He picked it up easily and followed her lead, as swift and assured as she could reasonably expect from a teenage boy that was still in the awkward stage of reaching his adult height.

Alex Rider was a fast learner, curious and focused. Alex Rider was a gift, a blank slate to turn into a masterpiece, and Crux had no idea how MI6 had allowed such potential to slip through their fingers.

If SCORPIA had anything to say about it – if Crux had anything to say about it – Orion would be spoken of in the breath as Cossack and Hunter and Nile. A legend in his own time.

* * *

SCORPIA's executive board had unanimously agreed to put Alex Rider's fate in Zeljan Kurst's hands. As Rider's biggest detractor on the board, a fair verdict would be guaranteed. No concessions would be made based on lingering fondness for his father or as a reward for Cossack's good service.

Well, 'fair verdict' in SCORPIA terms. Brendan Chase knew the deck had been heavily stacked against the boy. For all of Rider's excellent reports, Chase was still mildly surprised when the boy graduated – and with such excellent results, too.

He had seen the boy's graduation assignment, of course, as they all had. Alex Rider's life had hung in the balance for long minutes afterwards until even Kurst had to reluctantly admit that the boy had surpassed every expectation of a new graduate. They had demanded the impossible of him and he had succeeded. For that alone, he deserved a chance.

Cossack had waited silently, patiently through it all for the final verdict. If he'd had any feelings one way or the other about the fact that he would be the one to settle matters in the case of a unfavourable decision, even the board couldn't tell.

Brendan Chase's first actual meeting with the boy – Orion, and how appropriate it was – came in the final days of Operation Damocles.

His first impression was that Alex Rider was far more aware of the precariousness of his situation than any other newly graduated operative that Chase had met. Perhaps it was something to bring to Malagosto. Orion did not have the overconfidence and unwarranted pride. He did not have the quiet calm of an experienced operative, either, but he had the obedience down pat. No questions, no arguments, no opinions. A healthy fear for his life seemed to have instilled in him the understanding that could take new graduates months or years to learn, for those that lived that long. SCORPIA did not pay him to have personal opinions. He was a weapon, an exceptionally skilled and expensive one, and the extended will of the board. Their will was his. His only job was to carry out his orders.

Chase suspected Cossack had beaten that fact into Orion. There would be few other ways to teach a teenage boy that sort of silent grace and humility, and Alex Rider understood perhaps a little too well to have picked it up on his own.

Orion arrived with Cossack and Crux in his female disguise and with no sign at all of any discomfort. Chase kept an eye on him the entire time, and while the boy moved like the trained operative he was and not at all like a normal teenage girl, he never fidgeted or looked uncomfortable.

He simply waited, silent and patient, until Chase finally focused on him. Cossack had worked wonders with the boy.

"Now, Orion ..."

Chase turned the boy's head to get a closer look at what Crux had managed to do with him. The boy didn't resist. He reminded Chase a little of the colts he had grown up with years ago. Still a little skittish but trained enough to yield to the whims of his owners.

Crux was an excellent teacher in more than just torture and pain, it seemed. Orion made for a tall girl but he still hadn't filled out the way an adult would. It would be a useful disguise for a good while yet. Perhaps they would send him back to Malagosto later for a few weeks of intensive tutoring in disguises. Hunter hadn't been quite right for it, but his son had been trained as a spy from birth. Orion would adapt in a way that Hunter wouldn't really have been able to.

Chase let go of Orion again. "That is very well done. Very, very well. And for a week and a half of short lessons? Exceptional work. I think Crux might be due for a bonus. Let me see your walk and body language."

No arguments and no hesitation. Orion obeyed easily. He didn't have the practice or the grace of someone properly trained, but he did quite well, anyway. A little cautious but the potential was certainly there. Chase felt a flicker of annoyance that Crux already had a new assignment. If she had been given a month to teach the boy, and not just a week and a half -

\- but it was no matter. They could handle that later. The boy was SCORPIA's for at least the next five years. Perhaps not a future Cossack, he did not have the personality for it, but he could easily become an exceptional operative on his own. Five years could change a lot. Cossack seemed determined to remove any lingering morals the child had left.

"Exceptional work, indeed," Chase repeated, referring as much to Cossack as to Crux. "All you need now is enough practice to make it second nature."

"Thank you, sir," the boy said, speaking for the first time.

His eyes looked red, and he couldn't quite hide his exhaustion, but his voice was calm and even. The adult the executive board had judged him as and not the harmless child that MI6 had seen.

MI6 had never understood the sort of prize they had been given, but SCORPIA did, and they would make good use of it.

* * *

MI6 easily got the surveillance records from Singapore. They weren't the only ones that wanted a positive ID on the teenage operative. Alexander Owen was hard to recognise, but not to the people who had already used him as an agent several times.

Alex Rider had been in Singapore. The surveillance photos of Daniel Owen revealed what was clearly a disguised Yassen Gregorovich. MI6 had worked with several theories regarding Alex Rider's place with SCORPIA. It started to appear like Cossack had decided to shape Hunter's son into a replacement for the man who had betrayed him. With Cossack as the mentor rather than the student this time around, but a Gregorovich-Rider partnership again.

Given the calibre of assassin the last such partnership had resulted in, it was no surprise to anyone in the know when Alex Rider got moved quite a few places up on the various wanted lists in circulation.

* * *

The newly-dubbed team Sagitta's first meeting with their boss for the Miami mission was … unusual. They had wondered a little on the flight. It was the first time they had been called in for a large-scale operation, and certainly the first time one of SCORPIA's assassins had requested them specifically. They had worked with operatives before, but that was coincidence. Marcus' team happened to have been in the area and available.

They knew of Cossack. Everyone did. The fact that the man ran the Miami mission was both reassuring and mildly worrying for the same reason. Cossack had a reputation for brutal competence. He also didn't have much patience with those who did not share that same competence.

Orion was an unknown. They knew nothing but his – her? - name, and they had been busy in the Sandbox for long enough that they were mostly out of the gossip loop. Any news they got were late at best and flat-out wrong more often than not.

The moment they connected the name 'Orion' with the young teenager in front of them – _fifteen years old_ , fucking hell – was … something.

Marcus had been surprised, distrustful of his age … and then he had taken the time to really consider it. Orion was young, absolutely. He was also confident and his motions were graceful in a way that didn't have Cossack's unnatural ease but definitely had echoes of the same.

Not all operatives were trained at Malagosto, far from all of them were, but the graduates tended to have those minor tells. Warning signs to those who cared to pay attention.

Those were the tells that Marcus recognised now – that unnatural grace in a teenager, the name, the ease with which he worked with Cossack …

Orion was one of Malagosto's. They had put a _fourteen-year-old_ through Malagosto. And he had graduated.

That was the moment Marcus knew. The mission was either going to go spectacularly wrong, or it was going to be the potential start of a profitable partnership. And right there and then, it really could have gone either way.

* * *

Joe Byrne got the joy of getting to update his people again when the FBI approached him for a favour in May. They didn't quite put it that way but that was the translation, beneath all the politics.

Alex Rider had been in the United States. Most likely Yassen Gregorovich had been with him. Because the FBI had resorted to _SCORPIA_ to sort out their problems with a minor drug lord. They had no real proof of his identity, of course, but there was no one else it could have been. Not that young or entrusted with that much responsibility. It had not been one of SCORPIA's usual teenage employees, mostly untrained and expendable if they became a problem. That left very few other options.

Rider had passed his graduation assignment and obviously proven his worth in Singapore. Enough so that they trusted him with more important assignments now.

The FBI wanted the boy's identity confirmed if at all possible. The odds were good that SCORPIA would use Rider for the exchange, as a way to show off their new prize. It would fit with their usual methods, and certainly given Rider's history. The number of people in the intelligence community that had actual first-hand experience with Alex Rider was small, and once you removed MI6 from the equation – because the FBI would never go to them, and Joe really didn't blame them – it was really down to Joe himself. The only one in the CIA still alive who had enough experience with the boy to have a realistic chance to see through a deception and make a positive ID.

And so Joe Byrne found himself in Riyadh. It was not a bad place. A little warm for his tastes, a little too dusty sometimes, but nice enough. The air conditioning worked fine and he had stayed in far worse places. Nobody was trying to shoot him, at least. Well, more than usual, anyway.

The hotel chosen for the exchange was a high-end one that knew to ask no questions, and both sides of the exchange could work with that.

Joe was not surprised when Alex Rider stepped into the room. He had expected it. Rider looked like himself, Joe noticed, but not entirely. He was older, for one; almost a year older than when Joe had last seen him. The images from Singapore had been in disguise. This was the real Alex Rider. Taller and with broader shoulders, less the harmless schoolboy Joe had met but still very obviously just a child.

He moved with an echo of the same grace that Joe had seen in several other of SCORPIA's elite operatives. Not with the same lethal grace of Cossack or Nile, but he would get there in time, of that Joe had no doubt. The foundation was already there. He just had to survive long enough.

"Alex Rider." He couldn't keep the resignation from his voice. He had expected it but it still felt a little like a failure to see the kid there, with the distinct tells of a Malagosto-trained operative and as the representative of SCORPIA.

"Deputy Director Byrne. You weren't FBI last I heard."

A flicker of the boy's old personality. Alex Rider had been grudgingly respectful when Joe had met him that one time, a little resentful of the position he had been put in and a bit of a smartass, but a good kid.

Joe smiled. Faint and wry but genuine. "God forbid. I'm still not. I'm here as a favour. We thought it might be you. SCORPIA doesn't have too many teenagers employed, and certainly not ones they would trust with something that valuable. And that young to boot … that narrows it down to just one."

"And since we've met in person before, they sent you to confirm, just in case I was the contact."

If it bothered the kid, it didn't show. Then again, he would have been trained to hide any unwanted emotions. The CIA had a pretty decent idea of Malagosto's curriculum and could make a fair guess of Gregorovich's lessons as well.

"Well, your employers certainly left enough hints about you. It was worth it if we could confirm your identity." Anvil-sized hints in some cases. SCORPIA wanted the FBI to know that their teenage agent had managed what the FBI's couldn't. Petty little games. Joe hated them. And where Alex Rider went ... "I assume your presence means we've played host to Yassen Gregorovich as well."

The kid shrugged. "I can neither confirm nor deny SCORPIA business, sir."

A line that he had obviously been drilled in beforehand. Joe wasn't surprised. "I didn't expect you to. You're a lot more respectful than I remember."

He probably shouldn't have added the last part, shouldn't have let himself get caught up in SCORPIA's games, but Alex just shrugged a little again.

"You do represent our client, sir."

Fair point. Given his mentor, though, Joe had a second theory as well. "And Gregorovich doesn't tolerate backtalk, I imagine."

The Alex Rider Joe had met would have snapped back with something, orders and respectful behaviour be damned. As it was, all Joe got was a carefully bland look. "If you say so, sir. Should we get on with business before one of the snipers get an itchy trigger finger and sets off a major international incident?"

One of which was undoubtedly Gregorovich himself. Joe shook his head. "Might as well. You have the floor, Rider."

The boy nodded. "The FBI, as our client, paid for the retrieval and faked death of the target, any evidence in his home, and the deaths of his closest underlings. They offered a bonus should the deaths and general destruction of the target's business be blamed on a competitor. As of this morning, the current theory with the Miami police was still that a rival had successfully eliminated the target."

It sounded to Joe like he went through a check-list. Considering the briefing Joe himself had been given about the objectives, he probably did.

The heavy bag that the kid had brought with him was dumped on the table. There was something about the way he moved when he picked it up that caught Joe's attention. Injury? Possibly. Their analysts would be able to tell for sure.

"As agreed upon, the evidence found in the target's home, both physical and electronic. The death certificates and photographic evidence of his second and third in command's demise should fulfil that part of the request."

And there were another several items checked off on the list. Joe nodded. "Can't say I agree with their way to handle it, but at least they hired professionals. Ramos?"

The last item on the list. The kid opened the laptop he had brought as well and placed it in front of Joe. The image on the screen was a live feed of Ramos in a perfectly anonymous room. To Joe's trained eye, it could have been anywhere in half the world. There weren't even windows to give an idea of the time zone.

"At an undisclosed location in good condition," the kid replied. "The address will be given upon my safe return. Any attempt to hinder me will result in his execution."

"Of course it will." Standard SCORPIA procedure. Joe was a little surprised they hadn't sent in someone expendable like they preferred, but then, they seemed to want to show off their most recent prize. That would make it worth the risk to Alex Rider's life.

"My employers assume you have the necessary expertise to handle the interrogation. If not, an expert can be made available at the standard rate." The kid's voice was perfectly steady. Part of Joe was impressed. Part of him wondered just what methods they had used to train the boy. The CIA was well aware of what sort of RTI Malagosto's students went through, and Alex Rider would have been no exception. The fact that he could speak so calmly about it was more than Joe would have expected from a fifteen-year-old.

"I'm sure." Joe agreed dryly. SCORPIA knew what methods the CIA used on occasion. The CIA knew SCORPIA knew. Petty insults.

Alex took a breath, the first hint of unease, however slight, that Joe had seen from him. The kid was unnerved. Joe couldn't blame him. He was caught up in politics of the deadliest sort and he knew it. "I trust everything is to the client's satisfaction, then."

Joe glanced at one of the cameras in a silent question.

" _Everything checks out. The transfer has been made,"_ the voice in his earpiece spoke.

Joe's attention returned to Alex. "Everything seems to be in order. One half of the remaining payment has been transferred. The other half will follow once we have Ramos in custody."

Alex nodded a heartbeat later. Probably got his own instructions through his earpiece as well. "The money has been received, sir. If that was all ..."

The kid looked a little unnerved. Tense. He obviously wanted to get out of there and Joe couldn't blame him for that, either. Still, no one knew if they would ever get a chance like this again. The FBI analysts wanted something to work with. "You have quite a criminal record already."

"Wanted for the murder of Laurence Wright and for the bombing of an apartment in Singapore, wanted as a person of interest in a number of suspicious deaths in Singapore, and wanted for terrorist activities as a known member of a terrorist organisation," the kid summarised without missing a beat. "That last one would be SCORPIA, not MI6. I know sometimes I get those two confused. It's an easy mistake to make."

And so help him, but Rider sounded genuinely helpful. Joe almost wanted to smile. He had missed that bit of sass in the kid. A small bit of the kid that SCORPIA hadn't managed to destroy. SCORPIA and MI6, because it had become painfully clear that Blunt had to have left out a number of things in Rider's file as a minimum, not to mention severely messed up their management of a priceless asset.

Joe quite abruptly agreed with Rider. He wanted out of there, too. The analysts could make do with what they had. He wasn't about to keep the kid there any longer just because they wanted a fancy report from the shrinks. Alex Rider was already at the beck and call of a number of powerful people that used him with no regards to his own safety and well-being. Joe had been one of them before. He couldn't bring himself to do it again.

Joe shook his head. "Yes, Rider. That would be all."

The kid nodded. If he was relieved, he didn't show it, but he packed away the laptop with quick, efficient movements. Only when he was almost at the door did Joe speak again, a moment of impulse he couldn't quite stop and wasn't sure he wanted to.

"Alex."

The kid stopped by the door and turned to look back at him. Joe wondered what the odds were that they would ever meet again. Probably small. The life expectancy of a SCORPIA operative wasn't impressive and Rider was a hunted man. Child.

Fifteen years old. Jesus.

"You're a SCORPIA operative, a rogue MI6 agent, and Gregorovich's apprentice. You will be given no quarter." That warning was all Joe could do to help him, and maybe it was enough.

Alex nodded. "I know, sir."

Joe heard the underlying ' _Thank you'_ and shrugged. It was the least he could do. The kid deserved a medal for what happened with Sarov, a medal and a normal damn life. Not this. Joe wasn't sure if the fact that the kid seemed to be pretty clear on his position and the danger he was in made it better or just that much worse.

The kid left. Closed the door behind him.

And for a long time Joe Byrne remained where he was, mentally calling Blunt and MI6 and the FBI every damn word in the book for pulling a fifteen-year-old child into that sort of game.

* * *

MI6 got a copy of the recording from Riyadh. A week after the actual meeting and with some reluctance on behalf of the FBI, but they got it.

It made for unsettling watching for Tulip Jones. "He takes after John."

Alex at fourteen had looked like a younger, smaller John Rider. Alex at fifteen, three inches taller, and far better trained … the similarities were startling. He moved very different than he had the last time Jones had seen him in person, too. He didn't quite have the cat-like grace of Gregorovich or Nile, but the influence was clear.

Calm. Confident. Secure enough in his position to walk into a potential trap, though that was likely on SCORPIA's command.

Respectful and obedient, too. A world away from the Alex Rider that Mrs Jones had come to know. Whatever Gregorovich and SCORPIA had done, they had him firmly under control.

She wondered what Ian Rider would have thought of that. What John would have thought. It was not the sort of life he had ever wanted for his son. Neither was MI6, for that matter. Would he have considered it the lesser of two evils, his son under Gregorovich's protection? She preferred not to think about it. Personal feelings had no place in intelligence work but even then, John Rider had always had a soft spot for his teenage apprentice. He had thought for a while that he had been able to sway the boy from his path. No one knew what had changed, but something obviously had, and Gregorovich had turned into a terribly efficient killer along the way.

Now those same hands were moulding John Rider's only child into a potentially just as efficient killer.

Alex Rider wasn't a killer. He certainly wasn't an assassin. Ian Rider had trained him as a spy, never as a killer. But even Tulip Jones found it hard to argue with the blood on the boy's hands.

Fifteen years old. SCORPIA would consider him a remarkable asset for his age alone. John Rider had been twenty when he had killed in the line of duty, and that had certainly been young enough. The psychological evaluations all agreed. Alex Rider was not a killer. The psychological damage caused by SCORPIA forcing him to become one would be lifelong and severe. Tulip Jones was just as aware that with the child's current position, he was unlikely to live long enough for that to ever become a serious problem.

Perhaps she had helped lay the foundations for that when she stood by and watched him forced into intelligence work by Blunt. Alex had come back a changed boy every time. A little colder. A little wearier. A little less innocent.

Blunt watched the proceedings just as carefully, though Jones suspected he didn't feel a flicker of emotions for it. "He's injured."

It was slight, barely there. Just a slight shift of someone expecting pain when he put the heavy bag on the table and working to minimize it.

"Bullet into ballistic fabric," Jones replied. "Based on the calibre and circumstances, our analysts say bruised ribs but not broken."

The FBI had not wanted to share their interrogation of the man they had paid SCORPIA to retrieve, but they had at least passed on the fact that Alex Rider had potentially been injured in the process, along with the child's codename. Orion. The hunter.

"A few weeks of lighter work, then."

A week by now, Jones knew. SCORPIA took care of injured agents, but Alex Rider would be cleared for active duty again soon and they had no idea of where to start the search.

Nice, Singapore, Miami … there was no pattern to his assignments so far. None but Yassen Gregorovich's presence, and that man was a ghost.

The recording ended. Mrs Jones was silent.

Finally Blunt spoke. "Initiate Operation Grief."

* * *

It was … unnerving to see Alex Rider once more seated in Alan Blunt's office. Tulip Jones would be the first to admit that. Save for Grief's self-inflicted scars, the similarities had been startling already, even a year down the line. With MI6's assistance … the scars were hidden, Grief's haircut and features subtly changed based on the recording from Riyadh, and for all intents and purposes, Alex Rider was back with MI6.

There were still differences, even if they were only noticeable to those familiar with the child in question. Grief's expression was hard, unhinged, mad. Rider had been calm and confident in Riyadh. Grief took after his biological … source … and even physical training wasn't enough to change that. Orion took after Hunter; he had a soldier's build and was trained to Malagosto standards on top of that. Grief would never have the same muscular build, and every month that passed would make those difference all the more obvious.

MI6 was running out of time fast if they wanted to make use of Grief's startling similarity to Alex Rider.

If the plan worked, Alex Rider would be dead; killed by SCORPIA as a suspected double agent. Julius Grief would likely be returned to the prison in Gibraltar if he survived, though Tulip Jones knew the odds of that were slim. She strongly suspected that Alan Blunt had contingency plans in place, should Grief survive. His survival was simply too inconvenient for too many powerful people.

If the plan failed, Alex Rider would live. He would remain one of SCORPIA's rising assets.

As Tulip Jones watched the unnerving boy in the chair, she couldn't deny the small part of her that hoped this would be one of the rare times when Blunt's plans failed.

Even knowing what Alex Rider had done, what his allegiance now was, what MI6 had ultimately pushed him into, there was a part of Tulip that remembered another boy in that same chair, a year younger and far more human, and wanted him to live.

* * *

Samantha Graff had lost patience with her husband's choice of staff shortly after the second security company in a year arrived on the island. She wasn't surprised when only fortunate circumstances and sheer dumb luck let them catch the CIA agent before he could report back to his superiors.

When Iohannes finally agreed that they were a waste of money, Samantha had long since found a suitable replacement.

SCORPIA had an exceptional reputation. Expensive, of course, and security wasn't their primary business, but they were professionals. If a client paid enough, they would provide whatever was required. Samantha Graff wanted the best and they had the money for it. Her husband hadn't been convinced but with two disastrous hiding decisions under his belt, he had agreed to give her suggestion a try.

It wasn't like having wanted criminals on the island would be something new, and SCORPIA would be represented as a potential customer, anyway. Samantha had thrown enough money at the problem and SCORPIA had provided. Enough money to provide her with one of the best assassins in the world as well as his young protégé that was quickly making a name for himself.

Iohannes had been impressed with Yassen Gregorovich, if less so with Alex Rider. A teenager wasn't much use, certainly not one quite that young, and the child was terribly expensive for someone that he had no use for.

Samantha would be the first to admit her husband was a bit short-sighted sometimes. Alex Rider was startling expensive for his age and experience because SCORPIA, like Samantha herself, understood potential.

If Iohannes considered Alex Rider useless, so much the better. Samantha would be delighted to make use of him. A hardened killer at the age of fifteen, an exceptionally skilled graduate of the best school of murder on the planet, sharp and adaptable, and by all accounts absolutely loyal to SCORPIA and Yassen Gregorovich.

SCORPIA knew who had hired them. Iohannes might pay the bills, but SCORPIA was very clear on the fact that Samantha had hired them in the first place.

It was an expensive arrangement, but there was something to be said for having two hired killers at her beck and call, and Samantha planned to make full use of that.

* * *

Ben Daniels wasn't sure what he had expected from his first long-term deep cover mission. His job as Hart's bodyguard turned out to be a lot more interesting than he had expected. The man had been under MI6's thumb for three months by the time Ben had arrived on the scene. Hart and MI6 had reached an uneasy agreement and Ben was the compromise. A handler and additional security.

Seven months later, Ben had been on three continents and a myriad of countries at Hart's side. The invitation to Graff's island hideaway had been well received. There were whispers that something was going on there, but no one had managed to get an agent in place. Through sheer luck, MI6 found themselves with an actual invitation.

Hart's yacht had been taken over by MI6 and completely rewired when they had put Ben in place as his handler. The crew wasn't all MI6, but most were former military and all of them knew to keep their mouths shut. That investment came to good use now.

Whatever security Graff had hired might take a closer look at Ben – Ben and any other 'security' brought along for the meeting – but they were unlikely to do the same to Hart. The man was ruthless and well-connected, and exceptionally dangerous for it. People respected him.

The simple solution was to let Hart handle the actual bugging.

They worked with several possibilities, ranging from pretty much no security and all the way up to the sort of precautions that would block even MI6's surveillance.

The former would be easy. The latter … the Graffs wouldn't keep up that sort of security forever. It was a nightmare for everyone involved. All Ben and Hart had to do was get the bugs in place and wait for the security level to be lowered again. They would miss out on some things, of course, but the bugs would work just fine again the moment MI6 sent them the signal to wake back up.

MI6 also made sure reinforcements were in place. A full SAS troop would be ready on a ship well beyond what anyone would consider suspicious. They would prefer to have surveillance in place and find out as much as they could first, but they also wanted backup for Ben. Sometimes things happened. They might not have the luxury of waiting if his cover was blown.

The first real complication appeared when the _Boudicca_ arrived and was greeted by Yassen Gregorovich. MI6 had expected some degree of security. They hadn't expected Graff to hire SCORPIA for it, much less to pay the rather large salary someone like Gregorovich would demand.

Ben spotted the second complication as Hart and Gregorovich finished their greetings. He glanced towards the beach where another figure was waiting. Young, in SCORPIA uniform, but only a teenager. Fifteen, sixteen, maybe? And familiar. It clicked few seconds later.

 _Cub._ Alex Rider, Gregorovich's apprentice according to the files, but that was not the name Ben had come to know him under.

Ben had expected deep cover operations to be a little dicey sometimes, to demand those unpleasant choices, but staring at the fifteen-year-old assassin he had once known as Cub, Ben Daniels knew the operation had just got a lot more complicated.

* * *

Tom Harris spent three weeks of his summer holiday in Washington, D.C. with Jack Starbright. It was the first time he had been in the States. He was excited and a little nervous, but mostly he was relieved. Three weeks away from home. Three weeks with someone he could actually talk to.

His parents' arguments had turned into an even messier divorce over the autumn. London property was expensive, and no one could quite agree on anything, and as a result they still lived together. Separate bedrooms, separate lives, but ... together. And fighting. A lot. Sometimes they would ignore each other entirely, but that never lasted long.

His brother was working, busy all summer, and when Jack had offered he could come visit, he hadn't even bothered to ask his parents first. It was a given they would agree, if only so they could fight without making an effort to get along 'for our son'. They never paid much attention anymore. They hadn't noticed that Tom's best friend was gone, hadn't noticed their son had grown quiet and distrustful over the year. Well, except when they were looking for something to fight about. Then his mood was because the other parent hadn't made enough of an effort to be there for him.

Tom couldn't talk to them. He wasn't allowed to. He had signed a ton of papers and he knew that nothing good would come from going against them. MI6 would find out, he was sure of it. He wasn't allowed to talk to his parents or his brother or his friends. Tom Harris had learned at the tender age of fourteen that his own government was not above blackmailing Alex Rider - his best friend, someone his own age - into life-threatening missions. He had quite abruptly gone from ignoring the news from the most part to wondering what went on behind the scenes. If MI6 would do that sort of thing, what else of the sort went on in the world?

The only person Tom could talk to was Jack. Then she had moved back to the US, and emails had to be kept in the vaguest of terms.

The invitation to come visit was a relief. Tom got no updates on Alex's situation other than 'If he contacts you, let us know', but he suspected that Jack did. Jack had warned him that she was under surveillance. Tom didn't mind; he suspected he was, too. Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of someone who didn't quite fit in and who'd be gone when he looked again.

It was another of those things he couldn't tell his parents.

Tom arrived in mid-July, the very day after school let out. Jack waited for him at the airport. He spotted her immediately, with her red hair and the way she lit up when she saw him. She also wasn't alone. There was a man around Jack's age with her. It was no one that Tom recognised and it definitely wasn't someone Jack seemed to care about all that much.

She ignored the man completely to give Tom a tight hug when he reached her. Tom let teenage dignity be teenage dignity and hugged her right back, not caring in the least what the man might think.

Judging by the hug, she had missed him just as much as he had missed her. He hadn't realised until he was all alone, with Jack in the States and Alex … somewhere, just how much time he had spent with them.

The man led them outside to a large, dark car. Jack didn't seem to think it was anything unusual, so Tom went along with it.

It was only when the doors were closed and the car took off that she introduced him. "Tom, this is Smith, our CIA shadow for the day. I told them that if they were going to follow us, anyway, they could at least be useful."

Huh. Tom took a closer look at Smith. It probably wasn't his real name but it was a lot nicer than what Jack might have called him instead. He looked … bland. Boring. Like he'd fit right in with the sort of wallpaper hotels liked. The perfect person to put on surveillance.

He was probably safe to talk around, then, too. Tom ignored the city beyond the dark windows and focused on Jack instead.

"Have you heard anything? Nobody tells me a thing."

It had been more than a year. Tom hoped someone would at least have told him if Alex had died. Jack would have, if they had told her.

Jack's expression darkened, though the glare was aimed at the CIA agent-turned-cabbie. The man kept his attention on the road and pointedly ignored her. It looked like an old argument to Tom. The CIA probably didn't want him to know anything, either. Jack didn't seem to care. She also didn't ask Tom if he was sure he wanted to know, though her expression told him that it was probably bad news.

"He's Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice. That's the assassin that killed Ian Rider, Alex's uncle."

Oh. _Oh._

Tom took a sharp breath. Assassin. Apprentice. Tom wasn't stupid, he could fill in the blanks just fine.

His best friend was a killer at fifteen. While Tom had been at school, playing sports, listening to his parents fight, and wishing he could be anywhere else, Alex Rider had been somewhere, learning to kill. That explained why the INTERPOL alert had done nothing.

Tom couldn't imagine Alex as a killer. Based on Jack's glare, she blamed the CIA. Well, probably MI6, but the cabbie-agent was a convenient scapegoat.

They hunted assassins, didn't they? Almost as much as terrorists.

Tom nodded numbly.

"... Okay," he said, then repeated it a little stronger. "Okay."

"I'll tell you the full story when we get home," Jack said softly. "You deserve to know."

Whatever the CIA or MI6 might think. Tom nodded again. Part of him didn't want to know. A much bigger part of him knew that it was still Alex, still his friend, and he deserved to have someone who might understand and not just write him off as a killer.

Alex Rider had saved the world. Alex Rider was his friend. Tom owed it to him to listen.

* * *

Doped up on some strong painkillers and planted in a seat with strict instructions not to do anything stupid, Adams spent most of the flight asleep. Not all of it, though. Sometimes he woke up, from the broken ribs or stiff muscles or the weird dreams he always got when he was on the really strong stuff.

He'd had a moment when he thought he was done for. When he felt the impact in his chest and the blinding pain that followed. It was the closest call he'd had so far. He woke up from that memory, too. He doubted it would go away any time soon.

One of the times he opened his eyes, sluggish and a little confused, the plane was dark, the lights off. Most were asleep. The seats had been placed in clusters of four, two and two facing each other with a table in the middle, and left plenty of leg room to stretch out in. He thought he heard Aranda's snore in the next row. In the two seats across from him, Mace and Ivey were both asleep. On his right side, Jarek was deep asleep as well, favouring his injured arm. On his left was the wide aisle between the clusters of seats, and across from that …

… Cossack was at work, reading something on a laptop and occasionally typing a short string of something. And Orion was asleep against him, curled up in his own seat and using Yassen Gregorovich's shoulder as his pillow.

He looked his age at that moment. Orion was going to grow into a tall adult if he lived that long – and right now that was definitely not a certainty – but right there and then, he looked his fifteen years. It wasn't until then that Adams really noticed how tense the kid looked when he was awake. He hadn't slept much in the two days they had spent going to Dubai and back for that meeting with the board, and Adams couldn't blame him.

Cossack didn't seem to pay his shoulder decoration any notice.

The plane trembled slightly and levelled out again. Orion stirred.

Cossack's attention shifted from the laptop and to the teenager resting against him. He spoke in a low voice, the murmur swallowed by engine sounds. Moved slightly and ran a hand through Orion's hair in a soothing motion, and something in Adams' chest that had nothing to do with his cracked ribs twisted.

He had wondered if the board would consider the whole damn mess as big of a failure as he suspected. Cossack's brief gesture of comfort told him yes.

The man's lips moved again, the words so low that no sound reached beyond their seats. Orion said something back. Another brief sentence from Cossack, and the boy closed his eyes again.

Cossack glanced over. Adams managed to close his eyes the instant before Cossack spotted him. He wasn't supposed to have seen that. That had been for the two of them alone.

Adams did the sensible thing. He decided there and then that he had seen absolutely nothing and went back to sleep.

* * *

Two days after the attack on Santa Catarina Island, Ben Daniels found himself in London at the Royal & General for debriefing.

"... He let me go, sir," Ben finished up his summary of his encounter with Alex Rider. With Cub. Blunt and Jones knew everything, but they had taken a particular interest in Rider. "I saw him again briefly when we captured him but not after that."

 _I don't plan on going back into Blunt's hands alive._

Cub's words remained in Ben's mind, vicious and bitter. Ben didn't like his boss as a person – he doubted _anyone_ knew Blunt well enough to get an idea of him as a person, much less take a liking to him – but it made him wonder about the kid's experiences with MI6. He had seen the official file. He wondered how much wasn't there. Alex Rider had no lost love for Blunt or MI6.

"Missing, presumed dead until we see evidence of his survival, then," Blunt concluded. Mrs Jones hesitated for just a moment before she made a note in her papers. "The boy has the luck of the devil. We can't afford to write him off yet."

 _Presumed dead. Cub._

Ben took a slow breath. "Sir?"

There was no emotion in Blunt's eyes, none at all. They were discussing the possible death of a fifteen-year-old, but they could have been talking about paperwork for all of the emotion the man showed. "SCORPIA does not take kindly to failure. They take a particularly dim view of treason. Rider is an intelligent child. MI6 used him for a reason. Don't look so unsettled, Agent Daniels. Rider knew the cost when he let you go. I suppose he felt the likely price was worth it. Even if SCORPIA does not discover his treason, the amount of intel you managed to retrieve shows a serious failure in security. Security that Rider was responsible for in Gregorovich's place."

Ben thought back to the kid, to the slight tremor in his hand and the moment Ben knew he wouldn't shoot, and he wondered if he had been wrong. If it hadn't been unwillingness to shoot but the knowledge that he was about to sign his own death warrant. Gregorovich had been a harsh mentor from what Ben had seen. He would not have been forgiving.

"He's a child, sir."

"He is a Malagosto graduate. You yourself treated him like an adult. If you hadn't, he would have killed you to escape. Don't allow his moment of weakness to deceive you. That would be all."

That was a clear dismissal. Ben wasn't done. It wasn't a good idea to argue with Blunt but he had to know.

"He told me he had been blackmailed into doing those missions for MI6." _For you_ , he didn't say.

Blunt's eyes were grey and emotionless. There wasn't a shred of humanity in them. It was like watching a granite wall. "Rider always had a tendency towards exaggeration. He needed to be convinced of the importance of the missions, to be reminded of what was at stake, but in the end he always went willingly."

"He made it pretty clear he would die before he went back under your control." He had meant it, too, Ben had no doubt about that. Kids shouldn't talk about death so casually, much less be so obviously ready to carry through with the threat.

"Teenage dramatics," Blunt dismissed coldly. "Or perhaps he worried that someone might listen in on the confrontation. Rider is a trained killer. Gregorovich's apprentice. He has murdered at least five people in cold blood in the past four and a half month. Do you believe lying to be beyond him?"

"I believe he told the truth," Ben replied and continued before common sense could stop him. "I don't think he wanted to be at Brecon, either, and we never got an explanation about why he was there. If MI6 is blackmailing fourteen-year-olds into being spies -"

"Then what, Agent Daniels?" Blunt's words cut through Ben's tirade before it could start, pure, inhuman ice and utter disregard for a single thing Ben had said. "Rider was trained for the task from the moment he could walk. Ian Rider was one of our best agents. MI6 exists to protect British interests. That requires unpleasant decisions. The mission records will show that the use of Rider was worth every risk we took. The life one of agent, even a schoolboy, matters little against plans that could kill millions."

 _Then what_ , indeed.

Ben didn't speak. There wasn't anything he could say. He could curse out his boss who had all but admitted to blackmailing a schoolboy into a life-threatening mission, but that would do nothing. He could tell no one. He had no proof. And the boy in question wasn't even there anymore. That was the sort of people he worked for now, then. The sort willing to sacrifice a child for potential intel without blinking. He didn't like what that said about him.

And for the first time since Ben Daniels had seen Alex Rider's photo in a file of SCORPIA operatives, he understood why a fourteen-year-old kid had chosen to take his chances with Yassen Gregorovich.

* * *

The bar was called the Basement by most people familiar with it, mainly because of its location in a thoroughly-soundproofed basement. It was by invitation only and a little expensive, but Marcus assumed they had a lot of bribes to pay to keep it under the radar, too.

No one looked twice at Orion. He was fifteen, but he was in the company of Marcus and his men and that was all that mattered.

Marcus took Yassen's instructions of alcohol 'in moderation' to mean two drinks only, just to play it safe, and he passed those instructions on to his team. They would listen, too. Nobody wanted to risk drawing Cossack's displeasure, and definitely not after the end to that mission.

Someone had been sensible, because Jarek still had his arm in a sling. Adams looked a little groggy but not about to go anywhere. He was very careful with his ribs, though, and so was everyone else.

Marcus watched as most of his team headed straight for the bar and dragged Orion with them. Adams lingered for a little longer. He would need to stay clear of alcohol, anyway.

"Good to see you, boss," he said, just loud enough to be heard over the crowd and background music. It wasn't crowded but there was still plenty of noise.

Marcus could read between the lines just fine. His team hadn't been sure they would actually see him again. They had all heard stories of the board's punishment for failure when it came to the really important missions, and Santa Catarina had definitely counted.

Marcus' attention stayed focused on Orion's figure as he said something to Mace and the man laughed. "I can't take the credit for that. I just saw Orion – fifteen-year-old Orion – stand up to Zeljan Kurst and take full blame for the island fuck-up."

"Ballsy," Adams remarked. "Or really stupid."

"Maybe a bit of both," Marcus admitted. Kurst was a vicious bastard, the size of a bull and half as friendly. Marcus would go a long way to stay on the man's good side. He had expected Orion to be shot just for talking back, never mind the utter disaster that had been the MI6 agent.

"He didn't expect to get out alive," Marcus eventually continued. "I guess he figured that if he was dead, anyway, he had nothing to lose."

Adams was silent for a while. Up ahead, their team had started to look for a table. "He's got history with the board. That complicated family history he mentioned. Kurst was pretty harsh when they checked his tracker. If he handled the debriefing, I'm not surprised if Orion expected to be shot for that disaster."

Marcus considered his own observations and made a sound of agreement. It fit with what he had seen himself. They talked like they were familiar with each other, Kurst and Orion, and not like it was on good terms, either. An operative that drew the displeasure of a member of the board had to be lucky or skilled to stay alive. Based on what Marcus had seen so far, Orion counted as both.

"I don't think he read the part in the assassin's handbook where you're supposed to let the grunts take the blame," Adams continued. "Hell, he's just a kid. Can we keep him?"

Marcus' lips twitched slightly. "Well, to be fair, I think he already decided to keep us."

Marcus could live with that. There were a lot worse things than to be the go-to combat team of an operative willing to stand up to the board for them.

* * *

Yassen deliberately hadn't checked the passenger list for Alex's flight to Abu Dhabi. According to plans, Alex should have spent the night at a hotel in Abu Dhabi, but Yassen had just as deliberately not checked up on that, either. He had ordered a car and driver to be ready that morning, but he deliberately hadn't asked if Alex had checked in.

The fact that Alex had gone to visit Sagitta's two injured members gave him a fairly good idea of Alex's choice – to stay or to run – but he wouldn't know for sure until Alex reported at Malagosto … or failed to do so.

If Alex ran, the fallout would not be pleasant for either of them. Common sense told Yassen he should have kept an eye on the boy and been ready to act, should he have picked the wrong option.

Still, Yassen had chosen to stay out of it. If Alex Rider had enough, if he chose a life on the run, then so be it. Yassen would weather the consequences, as he had done before. He would not blame the child if that was the case, and he had wanted Alex to have the choice.

Alex Rider – not Orion, because that had been uniquely Alex – had risked his life to protect Marcus and his men. If necessary, he would have done the same for Yassen.

Yassen had plans, plans that were now swiftly changing and adapting with each new facet of Alex he saw. There had been a few options before. Now, with loyalty like that … several other options had just become available to him. To both of them.

If Alex Rider reported like he was supposed to, at least. If he chose to stay and not to run. Yassen would still need to test him, to be sure he would be reliable when it counted, but that was a minor thing.

The first thing Yassen Gregorovich spotted when he stepped into Malagosto's large dining hall was Alex Rider at d'Arc's side, brown eyes immediately focusing on him across the hall, and the almost instant flicker of relief that crossed the boy's features.

Yassen didn't smile. He wasn't about to show that kind of emotion in front of that many people. But for a moment, he was tempted.

* * *

Next: Alex adds another continent to his mission-count.


	36. Australia, part I

Yassen and Alex spent the rest of the day in Abu Dhabi. Yassen already had an envelope with their next assignment, and all they had to do now was prepare for it. Alex didn't talk much. Part of his mind was still back at Malagosto, still smelled gun smoke and blood, and the numbness still lingered. Yassen didn't make an issue of it.

Their destination was Zermatt. Alex hadn't really considered that people might go skiing in August, but apparently they did. Yassen and Alex spent the day buying enough supplies to look like real tourists, a father and son off on holiday. The actual winter gear would be bought in Switzerland. They were both light brunettes again, and Alex with contact lenses as well to match Yassen's blue eyes.

Alex wasn't told much. The target was a politician, a senator. She had good security, but not good enough to take everything into account, and Yassen Gregorovich was an exceptionally skilled sniper. There were easier way to get to her, but that was not the point. SCORPIA was paid to send a message – no one was untouchable and no amount of security would be good enough. They would do just that.

The file didn't specify the why or the who or anything else of the sort. It wasn't their business. Yassen didn't care. Alex _shouldn't_ care.

They left the following morning. Travelling straight from Abu Dhabi in August to a ski resort in Switzerland was a bit of a shock, and Alex felt colder than he had in ages. It wasn't freezing, since Zermatt itself was still in the middle of summer and the actual snow was much further up the mountains, but he had grown used to hot climates. Sure, Santa Catarina had been a little humid sometimes but he had grown used to it. The searing heat of Dubai and Abu Dhabi could be a little much, but once he had the chance to adapt, a part of him actually liked it.

It felt a little odd to be just the two of them again. They had been alone that week in the villa, but that had been different, somehow. This was a job, and the last time it had been just the two of them for an assassination – for anything, really – had been … Singapore. That day in the marina. Alex had been mostly on his own in Miami, and Santa Catarina had been with Sagitta and a number of guards. Now it was just the two of them.

Zermatt was car-free. Yassen had a car waiting in Zurich airport, but they had to park it and take a taxi the last bit of the way. There were plenty of tourists and they didn't look the least bit out of place. Alex spotted a helicopter a bit ahead. It said a little about the sort of visitors they got that beyond the usual choices of train or taxi for the last stretch, helicopter and limousine were an option, too.

The hotel was much the same, five stars and obviously expensive. It was small and combined that artfully designed, cosy Alpine cottage feel with the luxuries of a modern hotel. They even had a view of Matterhorn from their room, tall and distinct in the distance.

Their identities were father and son, a familiar cover by now that SCORPIA seemed to like. Off for a delayed summer vacation, just the two of them. It was unnervingly easy to almost forget why they were there, to forget that they were supposed to kill someone. Alex felt like just another tourist. It was the sort of thing that made him wonder how often Yassen had been just another business man, tourist, whatever his cover had been. Alex had travelled a lot with Ian. How close had they come to Yassen by chance alone and never known?

They met one of SCORPIA's contacts at the hotel. A brief meeting, a bag that changed hands, and that was all. A minute later, the woman was gone again and Yassen had the necessary supplies. She hadn't even blinked at Alex's age. Two hours and a walk around Zermatt later, and they had the gear to go skiing, too. It wasn't bulletproof the way his ski suit had been at Point Blanc, but Alex really hoped he wouldn't have to go snowboarding on an ironing-board again, either.

It was the sort of assignment Yassen could have done alone. The sort of assignment he had probably done dozens of with no problem.

"I feel kind of useless," Alex said that evening, when everything was ready. He wasn't even sure why it bothered him. He didn't _want_ to kill people. He should be grateful Yassen would handle this one.

"You will need another several years of training if you want any hope of taking a shot like that yourself," Yassen replied. He sounded a little amused to Alex's experienced ear, and Alex supposed he had the right to. Alex was good with a sniper rifle by now but Yassen was in a different league entirely. "You are still my student. Sometimes, your task will be to observe and provide backup, nothing more. I will need to focus on the target. I do not expect any issues, but your task will be to watch for any … interference."

Watch his back. Handle any problems that might show up. Unlike Singapore, they would be out in the open. More exposed than they had been in that apartment overlooking the marina.

A thread of warmth unfurled deep inside him. It was more than just providing backup. It was trust. A second chance. Alex hadn't been sure where they stood after the island. After Alex had ruined the operation in one stupid, impulsive move. Yassen had every reason not to trust him anymore. And yet …

Alex shifted a little, uncomfortable with the sudden, heavy emotion.

"... Thank you," he said and knew Yassen would understand.

The plan was to spend the following day doing reconnaissance. The target had arrived two days before them and would stay for a full week. It was a rush job, but that didn't have to mean a bad one. Even for a day intended for recon, Yassen still brought all of their gear.

"It will give us a better idea of the actual conditions," Yassen told him. Alex supposed that made sense.

It was bright sunshine and really quite pleasant. It looked like a summer day, except there was pristine white snow near the top of the mountains and some people wore a weird combination of winter getup and summer clothes. Right there, the pleasantly warm sunlight was better suited for shorts and t-shirt. Only a bit further up, the temperature would drop past freezing. It felt a little weird, skiing in summer. It felt even weirder knowing the mountains would get snow in the afternoon. It was in the middle of August.

Alex did wonder what sort of 'business' Yassen had seen to while Alex had that week off. He certainly seemed to know exactly where they were going. Away from the pistes and into rougher, more dangerous terrain. Neither of them had a problem with that. They were cautious, well-equipped for the hike, and Yassen clearly knew what he was doing.

They caught a shuttle from the hotel to the summer skiing area but the rest was on foot. It was a hard hike, even with Yassen carrying the rifle, and Alex didn't doubt he would sleep like a rock come evening. He still enjoyed it. The snow was brightly white in the sunshine, bright enough to require sunglasses, and the crunching sound under his boots brought a lot more good memories than bad ones.

It reminded him of vacations of Ian and the safe-house in Russia. There was less of Point Blanc in the memories than he had expected.

It was noon by the time they reached a spot with an unimpeded view of several of the pistes, one of several spots Yassen had already scouted based on photos of the area. They were a good bit away from the pistes, a mile or so to Alex's estimate, but Yassen didn't seem bothered. From this distance, the skiers looked like miniatures that had escaped from a doll house somewhere. The location left them a little exposed, but with the camo gear that Alex carried, they would be effectively invisible unless someone knew they were there.

The spot seemed to pass Yassen's initial judgement. Alex crouched in the snow while Yassen did a test run of everything. The large, heavy rifle, then the camo to cover them, and Yassen settled down in the snow to observe the piste through the scope.

Alex settled down next to him. The snow crunched as he shifted and the sound of fabric against fabric sounded like thunder in his ears. He wasn't cold, not with the kind of clothes he wore, but this close he could see his breath melt the surface of the snow.

He let Yassen focus on the skiers and focused on the mountain behind them instead. Anywhere someone might approach from. Anywhere someone might be able to hide. If he was going to have Yassen's back, he had to keep track of all of it.

It took maybe half an hour before Yassen shifted again and began to pack up once more. That done, he glanced at Alex. "Your verdict?"

Alex shrugged. "I could keep an eye on all approaches." He assumed that was what Yassen referred to, anyway.

The man nodded. "We have found our spot, then."

Just like that. Alex supposed Yassen would have plenty of experience with that sort of thing. Alex would be fumbling around blind. Yassen knew exactly what he was looking for.

The hike back was a little easier, downhill most of the way. Above them, the sky had started to turn cloudy and grey. The approaching snow would cover any tracks they had left.

They had dinner at an Italian restaurant that evening. Alex wanted pizza and he had apparently done well enough that Yassen decided to indulge him.

They talked about nothing and everything, safe topics to suit their cover, but it still felt real somehow. Like Alex was travelling with Ian again, those odd times when the man was suddenly home for a while and decided they should go somewhere. It had been disguised training, Alex knew now. Languages, cultures, the ability to adapt and become someone else, but he had still enjoyed it. Even now, looking back, he'd had fun as a kid.

Something had changed, and Alex could feel it. A slight shift in dynamics. Alex had made a complete mess of their assignment with the Graffs, but he had also stayed with SCORPIA. With Yassen. He had been given the chance to escape, and he had stayed. He had seen Yassen as Cossack, not as the patient mentor but as the ruthless assassin, and he had still returned from his week of downtime like he had been instructed to.

That meant something. Loyalty, stubbornness, or obedience; whatever the reason, that mattered to Yassen, and something had changed for it.

Alex slept like the dead that night. They were up well before dawn and in position by the time the first skiers had started to arrive. There was a new layer of snow but the sky was mostly clear again and the weather pleasant.

They both wore heavy duty ear protection. It was no easy shot to take, and the sniper rifle was large, heavy, and loud.

The distance to where Yassen expected the target to be the most vulnerable and stationary, right by the ski lift, was around fifteen hundred yards to Alex's estimate. Yassen probably knew the exact distance, not that Alex asked. SCORPIA didn't have many who could take a shot like that, and no one who could do it as reliably as Yassen Gregorovich.

Yassen would be the one to take the shot, but Alex still felt the anxiety and anticipation settle when the first people arrived on the pistes right when they opened for the day.

They were unnervingly exposed. Partially sheltered by an outcrop, but without much else in the way of protection or shelter. There were easier ways to kill their target but few that carried that strong of a message.

The over-clothes that Alex carried in his bag were white and patterned to blend in completely. Normal ski clothes would make them stand out like a sore thumb, but camo gear would draw unwanted attention in the town, especially right after an assassination. An extra layer for camouflage, then. Something that could easily be put on and removed again. They would need to be able to get in and out again fast. Alex would have to be able to pack away the camo in the precious few seconds it would take Yassen to disassemble and pack away the rifle.

He had done a dry run in their hotel room the evening before, a dozen times or more until he was sure he had it right. Yassen hadn't said anything, but Alex knew he approved. There would be no room for mistakes.

The message from their contact at the target's hotel arrived shortly after the pistes opened. Alex carried the phone. They couldn't afford to have Yassen distracted by anything once he had his finger on the trigger.

 _En route, six people, red and black ski suit._

There was a picture as well. Alex passed everything on to Yassen and replied with an affirmative after the man nodded.

They knew what the target looked like now, hiding somewhere in a group of six people. The target, her husband, and four security people. Both of their kids were in college by now, which cut down on the number of complications.

It took almost an hour before the group appeared. They had both spent the time unmoving, hidden between snow and exposed mountain. It had grown cloudy above them but at least the weather still held dry.

Yassen shifted at the appearance of the group. There had been several false alarms, groups that could have been it but hadn't been, but they both knew this was the right one. There was something about the way some of the figures moved, something that wasn't entirely just tourists out for a day of skiing.

Yassen settled down proper, his full attention on the group. When he shifted the rifle to get the aim right, it was in the tiniest of increments. This far away, even the slightest shift of the rifle could mean a huge change in trajectory.

Alex didn't watch. He focused on the landscape around them, watching for any sort of complications. Anyone who approached them, anyone who might have spotted them, any kind of danger at all.

This far away, the sound of people and the lift was faded and mostly swallowed by the snow. With his ear protection on, it was completely gone.

For endless seconds, all Alex heard was silence and the sound of his own pulse. He was completely still, just like Yassen. No distractions. No movements. Nothing.

Alex didn't see Yassen pull the trigger but he heard the sound of the shot even through the ear protection, and while he didn't feel the sharp recoil himself, he did see the way Yassen's stillness was broken. Even he couldn't stay completely unmoving under that much force.

Alex had his ear protection off a second later. They both moved down the outcrop, now sheltered from view, and Alex moved fast. He had his own and Yassen's camo gear off in less than ten seconds; had it packed away in another fifteen. Next to him, Yassen moved just as fast. The rifle was disassembled and packed away in the time it took Alex to finish.

The outcrop kept them hidden from view as they began the hike back at a brisk pace. They wouldn't see the piste behind them and no one could see them. Alex wondered briefly what was going on back there. Panic, probably. Yassen Gregorovich didn't miss and he certainly wouldn't have packed away the rifle if he had. He would have taken a second shot. They'd had the time for that.

Then they hit the rougher terrain and Alex turned his full focus to keeping up with Yassen's pace without slipping and breaking something in the process.

Even skiing part of the way, it still took two full hours and several long detours to get back to Zermatt. They met the SCORPIA contact that had brought them the rifle on the way. Just like that, the incriminating evidence was gone. The rifle and the camo and the ear protection and Alex's gun, even Yassen's jacket and gloves. He had new, identical clothes on but without the gunshot residue. Even if someone stopped them, there would be nothing to link them to the assassination.

The town was already full of police by the time they reached it. They didn't head straight for the hotel, either. Yassen quite deliberately settled the two of them down in an outdoor café for a cup of coffee for himself and a coke for Alex, their jackets draped over a chair and the skis next to them as they soaked up the sunlight.

It let Yassen get an idea of the response and made them look like just another couple of tourists.

The news had spread fast – Alex heard a group at a neighbouring table talk about the shooting – and a number of people watched the police move around with something between worry and morbid curiosity. Alex didn't blame them. Someone had been shot, assassinated, and the killer was still out there somewhere.

Alex drank his coke and tried to look as inconspicuous as possible. Logically he knew they were probably the least likely suspects, a father and his teenage son, but the icy chill still lingered whenever one of the officers moved a little too close to them.

No one looked twice at them. They returned to the hotel, just two more guests. They had a late lunch. They talked about the weather and the snow and Alex's progress in school; perfectly normal subjects.

Yassen kept up to date on any development in the situation, but the press had very little to share that Yassen and Alex didn't already know. If the police had any leads, no one had said anything.

Job done, they left for Zurich that evening. The taxi driver talked about the shooting with the morbid fascination of someone who probably watched live car chases, too. There was police by the road but the taxi was waved straight through. No one ever approached them. No one even looked at them twice.

Yassen paid the driver. Checked in at a hotel close to the airport. Turned on the TV to a local news station when they were settled in their room. Just like that, Yassen could add another successful assignment to his tally.

Alex supposed he could as well. He hadn't pulled the trigger, but he had been there every step of the way.

There were two plane tickets waiting for them when Yassen contacted SCORPIA with conformation of a job well done. Alex had expected that. He hadn't expected the destinations to be different.

Yassen departed straight from Zurich the following morning for 'other business'. He didn't mention the destination or whether it was an assignment or not, and Alex didn't ask.

Alex himself was sent to Australia. He departed in the early afternoon from Zurich as well on a business class seat to Melbourne. Major Winston Yu was in need of additional security for a few weeks and had specifically sent for Alex. Yassen hadn't looked particularly pleased about that but there was little either of them could do.

"He has an obsession with England," Yassen told him. "He likely requested you for that reason alone. SCORPIA does not have that many Malagosto graduates of your nationality. He is frail and ill. This matters nothing. Remember his file and treat him like the threat that he is. Those that cross him have a tendency to vanish. Yu runs a quite profitable organ trade. Few of the donors are paid, and even fewer survive the process." He hesitated just slightly. "He is also your godfather's direct superior. Be alert."

Well, that sounded just charming all around. It would be the fourth board member Alex would meet, too. He wondered how long it would take him to get to the full set. And the possibility of running into the world's worst godfather along the way? That was great. Just great.

"And Alex ..." Alex looked up, torn from his thoughts. There was something in Yassen's expression – thoughtful. Calculating. Considering. "Take the time to practice your observation skills. Remember your training. Think like an assassin. Look for weaknesses in his security. There was an attempt on his life last year. Most of those weaknesses will have been eradicated. Find the remaining ones."

It could have been taken as a way to improve Yu's security, to spot the potential risks before they could become a problem. Anyone listening would probably have interpreted it like that … not that anyone were, not with Yassen's usual security checks. They would have heard it as instructions for an operative expected to be security and bodyguard for a member of the executive board.

Something in Yassen's mannerism told Alex otherwise. A sudden stillness in the room; the sense that his answer would reach far, far beyond their conversation.

Look for weaknesses. Think like an assassin. Alex's mind deliberately didn't follow those thoughts to their logical conclusion. Not now. Not when it was too risky, when any wrong move could get him killed. Not when he had already come a hairsbreadth from death just weeks ago. The words could be interpreted as perfectly innocent. Alex knew better.

Instead he nodded once, the seriousness and sudden tension in his body letting Yassen know with perfect clarity that he understood the implications of the order just fine.

"... Yes, sir," Alex agreed a heartbeat later.

Yassen smiled thinly. If Alex had any doubts about the meaning behind the words, he didn't anymore. The topic was changed immediate after, but the conversation lingered in the back of Alex's mind. There was little he could do about it for now, nothing but trust that Yassen knew what he was doing because Alex didn't have a clue.

With a brief layover in Bangkok included, it took close to a full day to arrive in Melbourne. Even with the entertainment system and lots of room, Alex was still thoroughly bored and somewhat stir-crazy by the time they landed in the early evening. Lonely, too, with no company and no one to talk to, but he had learned to expect that.

From Melbourne, it was another long stretch, this time by a helicopter that had been waiting for him in the airport. When they finally landed, it was on the immense lawn of a very British looking house by the sea, like someone had transplanted an entire country house from merry old England and to the middle of Victoria. The entire place was lit up in the darkness, one of the few signs of human habitation Alex had seen in quite a while on the helicopter.

It was weird and a little unnerving.

Alex only had the suitcase from Zurich with him, though he had made sure to buy a few sets of warmer clothes that weren't actual winter clothes before he left. Everything else had been destroyed as possible evidence. It wasn't cold in Victoria in the Australian winter, but it could be chilly enough to be annoying. He had no weapons on him but he doubted it would be a problem to get whatever weaponry he wanted in the home of a member of SCORPIA's executive board.

He was greeted by a large, stony-faced man in a suit. If there was ever a more obvious security guard, Alex hadn't met him yet.

"Mr Rider?" the man asked. The answer should have been obvious. How many fifteen-year-old kids arrived alone at the house in a private helicopter? Alex answered, anyway.

"Yes."

The man nodded. He looked vaguely pleased. "Major Yu is expecting you."

Alex moved to get his luggage but the guard shook his head. Alex left it in the helicopter. It would be taken care of, then, or maybe Yu wanted him in SCORPIA uniform instead. He supposed he would find out soon enough.

He followed the guard across the lawn and inside the large home. It was even weirder inside. The interior was English. Everything Alex saw was English, from artworks by several artists with names that even he recognised and to the more old-fashioned decorations – the massive fireplaces and several suits of armour. The maid he caught a glimpse of looked Indonesian but her uniform looked distinctly English, too. Even the security guard spoke with a decent approximation of an Auntie Beeb accent.

If Alex ignored the fact that he knew they were in Australia, he could imagine he was back in England. The house didn't just have the look of it, it had the atmosphere.

The guard guided Alex inside what looked like a large study and closed the door behind him, staying outside himself. The windows were tall and overlooked the perfectly groomed lawn and one of the paths that had been lit by old-fashioned lampposts. There were floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The few book titles that Alex could make out were all English classics.

There was only one other person in the room, a man that Alex recognised from Yassen's SCORPIA files. The photo there had been of someone a lot younger but it was clearly the same person.

Alex knew why Yassen had warned him not to underestimate the man. Major Winston Yu looked very small and fragile in the immense, high-backed chair he was seated in. His head looked waxy and shrunken somehow, and he sat unusually still. A walking stick rested within easy reach of his gloved hands, and there was a cup of tea on the small table by his side.

He was also one of the founding members of SCORPIA and ruled the largest snakehead in the region with an iron fist. Physically fragile or not, the man was every bit as dangerous as the rest of the board in his own way.

Alex stopped a respectful distance away and stood at ease.

"Sir."

Yu smiled. It looked genuine. "Alex. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Do sit," he said pleasantly. It sounded genuine, too. Then Alex remembered Yassen's stories of organ trade and he wanted to shudder. "You've been on a bit of a long flight. Would you like a cup of tea? From Cornwall. Proper British grown. It's really quite good."

Alex knew an order when he heard one and settled down in the chair across from Yu. "Tea would be nice, thank you."

The door opened. The maid Alex had seen slipped inside with a tray and placed a delicate cup in front of him. It was silent as she worked to prepare the tea, neither speaking until she had left the room again.

"I'm certain you wonder why I summoned you for merely a small issue of security," Yu began.

Alex shrugged slightly. "You're a member of the board, sir." That seemed like a safe response.

"It is not your place to wonder, merely to follow orders?" Yu asked. "Our esteemed Doctor Three praised Cossack's training. Remarkably obedient, he said. I'm delighted to see he was right."

Obedient. Alex wondered how long he would have survived if Yassen hadn't deliberately cultivated that impression. It seemed to work in his favour a lot more often than he was really comfortable with.

"I've wanted to meet you for quite a while, you see. As you may have noticed, I hold a sincere admiration for England and you – you, Alex, are already shaping up to be one of the best operatives SCORPIA has had. Dreadful business with Graff, of course, but you showed a remarkable loyalty and sense of duty when you took full responsibility for it. Not too many other operatives would have done the same."

"Yes, sir." Alex wasn't sure what else to say to that. Instead he focused on the delicate cup and took a sip of tea. It didn't taste quite as strong as the tea he was used to – it lacked a bit of depth, somehow – but it was surprisingly decent.

"I am in the process of negotiating a business deal that will gain SCORPIA a significant new market. I don't expect trouble, of course," Yu said. "We are all civilized men. You will be visible intimidation, though I expect you to live up to your already-remarkable reputation if anything should happen."

That one was easier. "Yes, sir."

Yu nodded slightly. "Mr Warren, one of our potential new business associates, has a son your age," he said. Something about the voice, urbane and pleasant, made the words sound vaguely ominous. "I want you to look like him. Not a complete disguise, certainly, you are taller and significantly better trained, but I want enough of a resemblance to unnerve him. When he looks at you, I want him to imagine his son in your place. There will be a file and supplies in your room."

Mind games again. SCORPIA had a fondness for those. Alex could imagine Yu would make full use of the resemblance. "Yes, sir."

Alex's contributions to the conversation weren't exactly amazing but Yu didn't seem to mind. He smiled again – pleasantly. It was a little unnerving to someone who had read as detailed of a file about the man as Alex had. Yassen had been thorough in his lectures. Right now Alex's training and usefulness kept him reasonably safe. He had absolutely no intention of doing something that might change that. He was quite abruptly reminded of the fact that he was very much on his own now.

"We will talk further tomorrow. I suspect you could use the sleep."

"Yes, sir." Alex had done his best to hide his tiredness but he doubted he had been able to manage entirely.

Yu nodded. Alex took the dismissal for what it was and left the undisputed boss of the snakehead alone in his study. The guard was still waiting outside the door and led Alex through the large house and up a grand staircase to what Alex figured was the guest wing and the room that would be home for the next few weeks.

Alex's suitcase was already waiting for him by his bed. The room itself was closer to a small apartment. A living room, a bedroom, a fairly large bathroom, and tall windows that offered a view of the dark sea beyond the property.

Alex's reasonably thorough check of the place revealed that there were already clothes in the wardrobe, all of it made by English designers and all of it in Alex's size. Most of it would be appropriate for a normal fifteen-year-old boy, though the workout clothes were familiar as part of SCORPIA's standard uniform. There were even two pairs of shoes, workout and formal. Not only was the size just right, a quick check revealed that they fit decently well, too. Alex decided not to think too much about that. It wasn't like SCORPIA didn't own him for the next four and a half year. Of course they would know his size in shoes. And clothes. And underwear.

Creeps, the lot of them.

There was a selection of weapons as well and holsters to go with them. Those, at least, seemed to have been picked based on Alex's usual preference and not on their country of origin. Next to them was a light ballistic vest. Nothing that could stop the heavy-duty stuff but perfectly useful and it would fit underneath his usual clothes without being visible.

All of that could wait until the morning, though. Someone had delivered a tray with a light meal, a bowl of cut fruit, and a selection of teas. There was also a note to contact the kitchen with any requests he had.

Alex snacked while he read through the short file and took the time to really look at the photos in it. Warren's son was fifteen and, like Yu had said, a bit shorter than Alex. He looked to be in perfectly good shape but there was a world of difference between good shape and Yassen's standards. He had blue eyes and hair just slightly longer than Alex's that was a sun-bleached brown. Their facial features were clearly different, but with contacts and hair dye … it could work.

A quick shower later and Alex collapsed in bed, trusting Yu's security not to let anything go hideously wrong overnight.

Alex was up at five to work out and shower before breakfast. He didn't know when Yu would actually be up and he wanted to play it safe. There was no gym anywhere, but there had been no gyms in the safe-house in Russia, either, so Alex made do. He felt surprisingly rested, too. He had been exhausted and had slept like the dead. No nightmares, no dreams, nothing. He had needed that.

The run helped get rid of the last stiffness from the flight and gave him a good look at the house and the grounds that came with it. He had orders from Yassen as well, and he would slowly start to gather information over the days to come.

Two hours later and back from his daily run, he dragged the hair dye and contacts into the bathroom with him and set to work.

The Alex Rider that arrived at breakfast at eight on the dot was blue-eyed and dressed in some of the more formal clothes that had been left for him. Hair dye couldn't quite copy the sun-bleached brown of Isaac Warren's hair colour but it was close enough to work. He was visibly armed as well, which ruined the illusion a bit, but since Yu had supplied the weapons and holsters, Alex had to assume the man didn't mind.

Without recordings, he had no idea of the boy's body language and mannerism but that was just as well. The physical similarities would work just fine, and Alex would have felt a little unnerved mimicking someone for that kind of purpose.

The dining room the maid led him to was large and obscenely British. Expensive modern art and classical furniture, a long table, and an expansive view of the sea. Alex wasn't even surprised anymore, just approached the sole figure by the end of the table and settled for a casual at-ease a decently respectful distance away. The table was set for two but for now it was only Yu there.

The windows were bulletproof if he had any sense, and the doors armoured as well. Another few notes for Yassen.

It felt weird to be on his own. Weird and vulnerable, used to Yassen's presence as he was, and he didn't like it one bit. Usually he had at least Yassen at his back to help keep the lions at bay. Now he was on his own. Meeting Kurst alone had been bad enough, but at least that had been brief. This was more or less a week-long meeting with another person who held Alex's life in his hands and he couldn't afford to slip up. Not even once.

Yu was dressed in reasonably casual clothes, though Alex could tell without even knowing the brands that all of it was probably expensive designer stuff. His walking stick rested against his chair and he had a small breakfast in front of him. The careful, deliberate way he cut his food – calm and efficient – reminded Alex of the way Dr Three wielded his tools, and that comparison did nothing for Alex's appetite.

Yu put aside the cutlery at Alex's approach. He looked frail, true, but his eyes behind the wire-frame glasses were sharp and calculating in daylight in a way that hadn't been nearly as obvious in the gentle, artificial lights of the study the night before. Those eyes watched him closely now and took in every change that had happened since the night before.

Finally Yu's expression eased a little and he smiled.

"Alex," he greeted, still in that unnervingly pleasant voice. "Quite a good job. That will do just fine. I hear you were up early."

Alex had met several of Yu's security people during his workout and morning run. They had politely ignored each other but for a brief nod in greeting. They were on duty and so was Alex, in his own way. They had probably let Yu know.

"Cossack is very clear on the standards he expects me to live up to, sir."

Yu's smile looked approving. "He was never one to consider Malagosto's standards acceptable. It wasn't a surprise you thrived there. It must have felt like a bit of a vacation in comparison. There aren't too many students that Oliver has to find additional classes for to keep them properly challenged."

Properly challenged. Vacation. Right. Alex remembered fourteen-hour workdays and surprise night-time exercises and kept back the snort that wanted to get out. He had liked it at Malagosto and looking back, it had been a lot more relaxed than actual assignments were, but even with Yassen's harsh training for comparison, it had still been three months of hard work.

That wasn't the answer he suspected Yu wanted, though.

"Yes, sir. I liked it there," Alex answered, and at least that wasn't a flat-out lie.

"I believe Cossack has fond memories of the place as well. There is really nothing else like it in the world. Do sit, Alex. You're a growing boy, I'm sure you're hungry."

Alex sat. Yu's manner of speaking made it sound like they were old friends, but Alex was left with the distinct impression of sharing a breakfast table with a cobra. A reasonably affable cobra that could strike at any moment.

The maid arrived with a large breakfast tray. To Alex, it felt a little like he had just passed a test of some sort.

Yu did most of the talking over breakfast. About the house, and his experiences in England, and a string of questions aimed at Alex. Alex answered to the best of his abilities, though most of them were pretty odd. His upbringing and schooling, his brief time in SAS selection, his experiences with MI6. Most of it was already in the comprehensive file that SCORPIA kept on him, but Alex answered, anyway.

"Take today to become familiar with the house," Yu said when breakfast was done and the maid had cleaned up without a word. "Our esteemed visitors arrive tomorrow. It really is quite a remarkable building. It was a significant investment to bring it here but I think you'll agree it was well worth it."

Instead of building a home to look like an English country house, Yu had bought one and had it shipped to Australia brick by brick. Of course he had. Alex couldn't even find it in him to be surprised.

He also knew the answer Yu expected to that particular inquiry. "Yes, sir."

Yu glanced at the door. The very obvious security guard Alex had met the evening before stepped inside a second later. "Your guide for the day. I look quite forward to working with you, Alex."

Alex took the dismissal for what it was and got up. "Yes, sir."

As he followed the guard out of the room, he suspected he would be repeating that answer quite often in the weeks to come.

* * *

A/N: As far as I can make out, we never get a definitive location for Yu's home. Just some hints – by the sea, and within roughly an hour of flight over flat, rocky terrain with no roads or houses to get to the chunk of rainforest Alex ended up in. And mountains reasonably nearby. Rainforest puts it on the east coast, and I didn't think Yu would be quite that delighted to set off a tsunami that might destroy his own home, so I ruled out the northern coastline. Ben Daniels was in Darwin at the time Alex sent the signal, but the climate up north seemed a little too tropical for someone as fond of England as Yu is. Then I stared at a map of Australia, decided accuracy could go take a hike, and put Yu's home in Victoria, where it's somewhat more temperate. That entire section of _Snakehead_ up to Alex's reunion with Ben creeps me out like whoa, so I wasn't about to reread it too thoroughly.

Next: If there's an award for worst godfather in the world, Alex has a nominee.


	37. Australia, part II

A/N: Thank you, as always, for reading and for your reviews :)

* * *

When Yu's first visitors arrived the following morning, Alex had a pretty good idea of the full estate, from the flawless lawn and the wine cellar and to the hidden vantage points under the roof, perfect for snipers. There were few potential weaknesses, and none that could easily be exploited. Yu took his home security seriously.

One day hadn't been enough to get Alex as familiar with the place as he would have preferred, but it was good enough. It would have to be, since Yu obviously wasn't about to give him any more time to get ready.

Sometimes Alex had the nagging suspicion he was held to the same standards as Yassen was. Yassen could have had the whole place memorised in a day. Alex wasn't Yassen, but people obviously expected him to live up to the same high standards. There might have been some concessions made, but he was pretty sure he was held to higher standards than most other Malagosto-trained operatives.

Then again, he also had the nagging suspicion he was paid a lot better than the standard graduate, too. The fact that he had been made Yassen's partner had bypassed the normal beginner's assignments he would have been given. Better assignments meant better pay. Far higher risks, too, but Yassen didn't even blink at that.

Alex had no idea what he was getting paid to play security for a board member for two weeks. Maybe it depended on how well he did. He certainly wasn't about to ask. He didn't want to know and he really didn't want to draw attention by asking that kind of question.

He wondered briefly if Yu had a second in command, the way Chase had Nile. Yassen's file had mentioned nothing. He had different lieutenants to keep an eye on each of the snakehead's many business areas but no permanent right hand to carry out his orders. Probably a way to make sure no one got overconfident enough to try to take over.

Warren arrived by helicopter with three security people. He was in his late forties, deeply tanned, and with a hard look on his face. Alex saw the exact moment he looked away from Yu and spotted Alex's silent presence in the background. The exact moment the resemblance with his own son clicked. The long seconds it took him to look away again, back to his host. Alex might have dressed like a normal teenager, but the very obvious holsters and weapons left little doubt about his purpose there.

Yu clearly saw it, too. Alex didn't doubt he had been waiting for it. Yu smiled thinly.

"You have spotted my security for the day, I see. It wouldn't normally be appropriate with an introduction to the staff, but he really is quite remarkable. Boasting is a bit of a flaw, but you'll have to forgive my brief indulgence. The young man is Alex Rider, Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice. His permanent partner these days, too, wasn't it, Alex?"

It was a rhetorical question. Alex answered anyway, as expected. "Yes, sir."

"A quite remarkable child," Yu repeated. "He is the son of Gregorovich's former mentor and graduated Malagosto just three weeks after his fifteenth birthday. After his success, we've started to look into other potential students his age. It's no easy choice, of course. You are a father yourself. Your son is about Alex's age, is he not? I'm certain you know, then. So few children that age could survive Malagosto's unique requirements. Alex was always a sensible student. He knew the price of failure."

The underlying threat wasn't subtle in the least. Alex supposed that when you were as influential as Yu, it didn't really have to be. Warren would cooperate in the negotiations or his son could very likely find himself as a potential student of Malagosto as well, willingly or otherwise.

Alex doubted SCORPIA had any real plans for other operatives his age but Warren didn't know that, and based on the sudden tension in his shoulders, he believed it. And why shouldn't he? Alex was living proof that SCORPIA wouldn't hesitate to put a child through Malagosto to graduate at adult standards or die for their failure.

Warren pointedly ignored the very blatant bait and glanced at Alex again before he looked away, dismissive.

"It's risky with an assassin that young," he said. "Unreliable."

"True skills know no age," Yu disagreed. "Few would suspect a child. With the appropriate training … well, Gregorovich has little patience for insolence. Like any operative, Alex was taught to be obedient. Quite thoroughly so."

The amount of implications Yu managed to put into those words was impressive even to Alex, however much he hated that act sometimes.

"Now, Mr Warren," Yu said. "Let us work out this minor issue of our future business association."

* * *

It was well into evening by the time Warren and his small retinue left again.

Alex had spent most of the day as Yu's silent shadow, watching the proceedings carefully from a distance. Close enough to step in if necessary, but far enough away to keep an eye on everyone. Though to be fair, he had been more focused on Yu's visitors than what they were actually talking about. He had figured out pretty fast that the negotiations were not only detailed and technical but also incredibly boring.

His feet were sore from standing still for so long. He was hungry and thirsty, he had the first twinges of a headache, and he really just wanted to spend about an hour soaking in the large bath in his rooms. And sleep. Sleep sounded great.

Yu was delighted. Alex wasn't sure what kind of thing had gone before those negotiations, but he suspected a lot of violence and lost profits. It hadn't been a complete capitulation but close enough. Warren worked for Yu now. The occasional glances Warren had given Alex left little doubt that while Yu probably wouldn't waste a perfectly good place at Malagosto for petty vengeance, there were any number of other things he could do to make Warren cooperative, and Warren knew it. Yu wouldn't hesitate to target Isaac Warren for his father's stubbornness.

"You did well, Alex," Yu commented once Warren's helicopter had taken off again.

The paperwork was settled; nothing that would hold in any court but good enough for a criminal organisation. The larger points had been hammered out. The important things. The finer details would be worked out in the days to come as the future managers of Yu's new business would visit to get their instructions.

"Thank you, sir." That seemed like a safe response.

Yu headed back inside the large house, Alex half a step behind him and with one of the security guards trailing behind them at a respectful distance.

"It was expected, of course, as Yassen's protégé. It's a pity that he laid claim to you first," Yu continued. "You would have made a remarkable second in command. A little young, granted, but with the right training … yes. Quite a remarkable second. Nile wasn't much past twenty when Mrs Rothman spotted his potential. An extraordinary young man as well."

Alex imagined spending years as Yu's personal assistant-slash-assassin and felt like he had just dodged a bullet.

Yu glanced at him. Alex's exhaustion must have shown, not that there was much he could do to hide it. "You have the rest of the evening off. Report at eight tomorrow. Dismissed."

The best words he had heard in days. "Yes, sir."

Alex had a quick dinner and even quicker shower and was asleep within the hour.

It was the best sleep he'd had in weeks.

* * *

The week that followed saw a constant stream of visitors as Yu handled the finer details of his new acquisition. The day to day management would be delegated to some underling or another but for now, Yu wanted to make sure there wouldn't be any unpleasant surprises waiting for him.

Alex worked out in the early mornings and spent the rest of the day just … watching. Waiting. Even knowing how dangerous Yu was, Alex couldn't remember the last time he had been that bored. He supposed it was better than too much excitement, but it was still mind-numbingly boring. He wondered what Yassen was up to. Probably something a little less dull.

It was boring but he still went to bed exhausted. On his feet all day and keeping a close eye on any kind of potential danger was tiring both mentally and physically. He got used to it but it was still draining, and Yassen's order to keep an eye out for any weaknesses didn't make it any easier.

Some of the guests were more or less reluctant new business partners. For those meetings, Alex was Yu's shadow and security. He hadn't needed to step in even once, but he did do his best to channel Yassen. Yu wanted visible intimidation, so that was what Alex went for. The man looked pleased enough with it, so Alex supposed he did a decent job. Yu never seemed to stop being delighted at the brief double-take people would do when they realised their host's last line of defence was a fifteen-year-old assassin, and he was quite happy to introduce Alex to each and every one of them.

Some of the guests were employees – minions, Alex's mind added – and those times Alex became more of a combination bodyguard and personal assistant for the day. Yu was a little less obvious about it those times, but Alex still got the distinct impression he took a gleeful delight in his guests' discomfort at being within arm's reach of Yassen Gregorovich's quiet, young protégé.

It was early in the second week when that routine changed again. The guest that arrived by chopper that morning was due to stay for three days to sort out a number of things, and something about Yu's attitude told Alex that absolutely nothing good was on its way.

Yu kept up that friendly, pleasant demeanour. He never lost his patience. He never raised his voice. He never slacked on manners. Still, there was something in Yu's features that morning.

Anticipation. Sharp, vicious delight, almost hidden beneath the urbane manners.

Alex waited a step behind Yu for the chopper to come to a complete stop on the lawn. The man that appeared was dressed in more casual clothes than the other guests and assorted minions that had passed through the large house. A white shirt and jeans, and a thin jacket. He was tanned, with long, black hair and a rough beard. Wiry build, Alex noted, but he didn't have the grace he was used to from operatives like Yassen or Nile or Crux. It didn't mean he was harmless, but he probably wasn't one of Malagosto's.

Up close, his eyes were dark and Alex could see the exact moment the man spotted him. The sudden tension and flicker of emotions in his eyes – desperation or pain or something else Alex couldn't identify – didn't seem to be because of Alex's young age. The man had recognised him. He knew Alex, or he had known John Rider well enough to recognise his son on sight.

Yu gestured for Alex to come closer. He followed the unspoken order, though he really didn't want to.

"You were due last night," Yu said. No greeting, just straight to business.

"Not with the watch ASIS kept on things," the man disagreed. He focused on Yu but his attention drifted to Alex again.

Yu noticed and looked … gleeful. Delighted.

"You have noticed my temporary security. He looks quite startling like his father, I would say. Orion, this is your godfather. He's been a little absent in your life, but fortunately Cossack has proven more than able to fulfil that role in his place. Ash, I'm sure you remember your godson, Alex Rider. Cossack has been most forthcoming about the minor events surrounding your acceptance into SCORPIA."

So this was his godfather. This was the man who had killed Alex's parents and then lingered in his life for years after before he finally had the decency to leave him alone. The boy he had made an orphan in the first place.

Alex could quite clearly see the moment Yu's comment sunk in. Ash's posture tensed slightly and the look he gave Alex was a lot more wary.

Alex was no longer just Ash's godson. Alex was the Malagosto-trained godson that had been hand-picked by Yassen Gregorovich as his partner and apprentice and who knew exactly how he had been made an orphan.

Ash looked at Yu. There was a definite question in his eyes though Alex didn't know him well enough to read it.

Yu seemed to understand it, though, because he looked back to Alex with a bit of an indulgent expression. "Ash is one of my most trusted and useful employees. It was a bit unfortunate his cover was blown, but he has proven quite useful in other ways. I will be most disappointed if anything unfortunate should happen to him."

He didn't sound all that concerned about it. If Alex read the situation right, Yu blamed Ash for that blown cover and the loss of an agent with ASIS. Ash might be a useful employee but right now he was all the more useful for the sadistic cat and mouse game Yu could play with Ash and Orion in the same room. Alex would be punished if anything happened, definitely, but that wouldn't matter to Ash by then.

The tension in Ash's muscles remained. Alex waited a heartbeat before he nodded, just to make a point and play the role he knew he was expected to. "... Yes, sir."

"Such a remarkable boy," Yu said. "Well worth the risk SCORPIA took."

Alex got the impression that useful agent or not, Yu didn't like Ash all that much. His accent probably didn't help. Warned about Yu's obsession with Britain, Alex made sure to use his London-bred accent and play up his country of birth as much as he could. Ash's accent wasn't quite as distinct as it had probably been once. There was a clear touch of Australian that had managed to sneak into it over the years.

He could imagine that Yu, with his own flawless accent, wasn't terribly impressed with that.

Ash and Yu started up a conversation on the way into the house, Alex a few steps behind them. Ash switched the language from English to what sounded like Mandarin to Alex. In any case it wasn't one of the languages he understood.

He also didn't doubt that several people probably kept a close eye on his reaction to that, Ash and Yu included. Alex made sure not to show a reaction one way or another. Did he want to know what was going on? Absolutely. Did he need to? Probably not. He was there as security … and to spot any weaknesses while he was at it. Any potential ways to target Yu. Alex could read body language just fine. He could get enough warning that way if Ash became a threat.

The slight tension in Ash's shoulders told Alex that the man wasn't anywhere near as comfortable with Alex at his back as he pretended to be, Yu's orders be damned. Alex felt vindictively pleased at that.

Alex didn't doubt what the conversation was about. The occasional glances in his direction told him that. Eventually Yu said something, clearly an order – that tone of voice left no doubt – and Ash swallowed before he spoke a brief reply. _Yes, sir._ Alex might not understand the words but that one he got the meaning of just fine.

"Excellent," Yu said and switched back to English. "Your late arrival shifted the schedule. We're already behind and we have a number of things to cover."

Yu was definitely not happy. Alex did notice that at no point had Ash actually apologised for the delay. Then again, that was Ash's problem. If he could get away with that sort of thing around Yu, well, maybe he was more valuable than Alex first thought.

Ash vanished to his room. He reappeared ten minutes later in clean clothes. Yu and Ash would spend the rest of the day deep in discussion.

* * *

By the time Ash arrived, Alex had a pretty good mental file on Yu, his home, and a few potential weaknesses. It was a good thing, too, because he suspected that with Ash's arrival, he would find his attention taken up by other things.

Ash's presence was like a constant, lingering awareness, even when the man was elsewhere in the house. It didn't help that Yu had Alex present for everything. Alex doubted it was because he thought Ash might be a threat, but he was still there as part intimidation, part security, and mostly because Yu seemed to find it amusing to put the two of them in the same room.

On the bright side, Alex picked up a lot of knowledge of Yu's operations. It didn't seem to bother the man, and if it had been anyone other than Alex, it probably shouldn't have, either. SCORPIA was very good at weeding out undercover agents. Alex had measure up to Yassen's standards, to Malagosto's, to Dr Three's, and to Kurst's. If he had been anything less than perfectly loyal, someone should have spotted it.

Alex and Ash didn't exchange a single word almost the entire first day past that initial introduction. When they finally ran into each other, it was purely on accident and very much unwanted on both sides.

Alex had found himself by the staff entrance to the kitchen. Even the parts of the building that outsiders and probably Yu himself never saw were perfectly, stereotypical British. There was a small, separate garden outside the entrance to the kitchens and the staff quarters, kept neatly separate from the proper garden where the actual important people might be.

It was small and homey, which was the reason Alex gave Yu when asked why he had taken a liking to it. It was also one of the few weaknesses in Yu's security, the staff entrance and the kitchens, and Alex wanted to take a good look at it while he could.

That first evening after Ash's arrival, after dinner and when Alex had been dismissed for the day, he found himself wandering down to that garden. Surprisingly, he wasn't alone. It was chilly and dark outside but someone was there; the red glow of a cigarette in the darkness. Then the person looked up and the light from the building caught his face enough to identify him.

Ash.

Alex stilled. He was about to go back inside and call it a night when a voice broke the silence, familiar from a full day of business talk and planning.

"When I first heard about you and Cossack, I thought it was one of Blunt's plans for a new undercover agent."

Alex wondered for a moment what Ash was playing at. Then he realised. Common ground. Hatred of MI6 and Alan Blunt, probably the only common ground they had. Everything else was a minefield. He could bring up Ash's betrayal and murder of his parents, but that would be a little hypocritical when he himself was the student and partner of the man who killed Ian Rider.

Alex almost left. Then at the last second he changed his mind and stayed. This was the man who had killed his parents in cold blood. It was also one of the few people left alive who had any memories of them. Attachments were a weakness, attachments got people killed, but his curiosity still made him stay.

"You weren't the only one," Alex replied. Blunt would have done it, too. Ordered Alex to Malagosto in a heartbeat if they got the chance and thought he had even a glimmer of a hope of surviving. Probably even if he didn't think so, too.

"You survived, though." Ash's dark eyes were black and unreadable in the darkness. "I heard about Nice. Good job."

Of course he knew. Most of SCORPIA's people somehow seemed to, at least the ones a bit up in the hierarchy.

"They had Cossack ready to shoot me if I failed." Alex wasn't sure why he said it, but something about Ash's mannerism brought out the sharper side of him. The one that wasn't about the accept the comment with the usual thanks he was supposed to answer with. "I didn't find out until afterwards, of course, but ..." he shrugged.

Something flickered through Ash's eyes. He looked angry for just a second. Bitter. Maybe he remembered his own test. The plane and the bomb and the moment Alex had been made an orphan, long before he was even old enough to remember his parents. "Of course. He's SCORPIA's best for a reason. He wouldn't have hesitated."

Or maybe it wasn't memories of his own test but the knife Yassen had used to nearly kill him. Alex had watched him closely and it was obvious the injury still bothered him fifteen years later. He had to take a number of pills over the course of the day and he couldn't quite hide the pain sometimes.

Ash finished the cigarette and ground the butt into the lawn.

Alex wondered if he expected a response. It wasn't like he was going to disagree with Ash's remark. No, Yassen wouldn't have hesitated, not even for Alex. That was what made him Yassen.

"You know they'll probably have him carry it out if you become an inconvenience to them," Ash continued. "He found you, it's his mess to clean up. You're a smart kid, and you still trust him?"

Yes. No. Usually? It wasn't the sort of question he could answer in less than an essay, and it really depended on the day someone asked. That wasn't the sort of thing he was about to tell his back-stabbing godfather, though.

"Yes," Alex said with nothing but utter certainty in his voice.

"Of course." Ash's voice sounded bitter and there was an ugly darkness to it. "Go to bed, Alex. You're a growing boy."

"And you're pretty sure I won't forget Yu's orders and make you pay," Alex snapped back before he could stop himself.

Ash's lips twisted, mocking and pained in a strange combination. Ash was a complicated person, Alex suspected, and most of the layers were nasty ones. "Cossack wouldn't have a student that wasn't completely loyal to him, and he's SCORPIA's best. You got your orders. We both know you'll obey them to the letter, like the well-trained little weapon you are. Alex Rider was too soft-hearted for revenge, and Orion is too obedient. Go to bed. Long day tomorrow."

Ash didn't wait to see if Alex followed orders but wandered off instead, already reaching for another cigarette. Stress? Tension? Alex hoped it was both.

He stuck around to get a good look at the gardens, and waited long enough to go back inside to make it absolutely clear he wasn't following Ash's instruction. He wasn't going to listen to Ash, not now and not ever.

* * *

Two of Yu's lieutenants arrived in the morning the second day that Ash was there. They would spend the entire day with Yu and Ash as the four of them went over a number of things. For the most part the language was English but occasionally the four of them would slip into what Alex thought was probably Thai. Both of the lieutenants spoke heavily accented English, and some discussions seemed to flow better in a different language. Alex wasn't sure if Thai was their first language, but they seemed to speak it a lot better.

At least Yu preferred English. That made it a lot easier for Alex to follow along.

Alex barely spoke all day. He was getting used to being on his feet and hardly moving for hours at a time, but that didn't make it any less boring. He kept an eye on things, ran through his mental report to Yassen on the things he had spotted, and took petty satisfaction in unnerving Ash.

He didn't do much, and nothing that would even skirt Yu's orders to leave the man unharmed, but he'd had a full day to watch Ash's reaction to him and he made good use of that.

Alex made sure to stand on the side of Yu closest to Ash, and all the better if Ash had his back to Alex. He watched Ash closely whenever the man happened to get a little too close to Yu – for security purpose, of course, if Yu had cared to ask – and generally did everything he could to keep Ash on edge.

Yu never commented but something in the man's demeanour left little doubt to Alex that he knew exactly what his young bodyguard was up to and considered it a delightful bit of entertainment. That was all but confirmed when Yu quite deliberately had Ash seated where he would have Alex at his back, completely in his blind spot. Ash's tension went up a notch but he knew better than to comment.

Alex wasn't sure he liked being the sort of person Yassen was, the kind that could terrify someone by his presence alone and could put them on edge with nothing more than a glance, but in Ash's case he could make an exception.

"Such vindictiveness, Alex," Yu commented that evening when the two lieutenants had left and Ash retired for the night. He sounded pleasant. Amused.

"I have no idea of what you're talking about, sir." Alex's response was perfectly bland and perfectly innocent.

It was also a complete lie and they both knew it, but Alex suspected he could get away with it. Between himself and Ash, he had the upper hand. Ash was a double agent who had lost his most valuable quality. His cover was blown and he could not longer access the information Yu had prized so much. With Yu annoyed with Ash, Alex suspected he could get away with a lot of things without losing Yu's indulgent attitude.

"Of course not," Yu agreed. He was definitely amused. "Dismissed."

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed and left in a significantly better mood.

* * *

Ash and Yu finished their business well ahead of schedule. The last papers were packed up shortly after lunch that third day, the last bits of planning settled. Yu still insisted Ash stayed the last few hours until he was originally supposed to leave.

Alex supposed it made sense. Everything had already been booked. Getting the chopper and whatever other transport Ash had waiting for him rescheduled just for three hours was pointless.

Ash seemed to agree. At least he didn't argue and he didn't look like he minded.

They had afternoon tea in the garden. It was pleasant outside, sunny and mild. Alex felt horribly out of place, heavily armed and stuck in the middle of a tea party. Yu and Ash were both dressed for it, in light, casual clothes. Alex was still very obviously there as security and was dressed accordingly.

Yu was big on manners. Alex had noticed the man never took any calls during meals and the staff knew better than to disturb him. That alone made him pay attention when Yu brought out his phone and glanced at the message on it. He was still for a second. Then he put the phone aside again, outwardly calm but Alex could see the shift in his mood.

He had spent enough time watching the man to pick up on even the small shifts, both to add to Yassen's file but for his own potential safety as well.

Yu's eyes sharpened. Gained the same cold, calculating quality to them that they'd had the first morning when Yu had judged Alex's success at mimicking Warren's son, except this time it wasn't aimed at Alex.

Yu took a sip of tea. Put the cup back down again with precise motions. "You know, I didn't believe it when the situation was brought to my attention," Yu said. "I was quite sure it was another of those dreary bits of political manoeuvrings that appear ever so often if you don't make sure to discourage those attempts. It appears I was mistaken."

Ash looked up, wariness plain on his features. "What?"

"The _Liberian Star_ was just raided by Australian forces. Why they would take an interest in an ordinary container ship in the Port of Melbourne is a bit of mystery. It would have been an unfortunate affair if her cargo had not by pure coincidence been perfectly legitimate this time. Primarily a shipment of containers belonging to Unwin Toys, I believe. Preparations for the Christmas season. Gifts for the children and all. Captain De Wynter will be a bit delayed while things are sorted out, but nothing that should put them overly behind on schedule. They will be in Darwin on time."

Tension. A sudden stiffness to Ash's posture, there and gone a second later, that told Alex plainly that something was brewing. Yu was armed. Alex still had a gun in his hand a second later, drawn but not yet aimed.

"I'm afraid ASIS will find that their intel was quite faulty," Yu continued. "I'm rather disappointed in you, Ash. We took you in. We gave you a chance when no one else would. We have had an exceptionally profitable relationship over the past fifteen years. I didn't believe it when I saw evidence of your little side business. Not only was your cover destroyed, you turned sides as well. Once a traitor, always a traitor, I suppose."

"And you believed them? Someone is trying to make room for promotions," Ash said. "I've made plenty of enemies on your behalf."

Even Alex was reluctantly impressed by the calmness in his voice, the utter confidence still in his body language.

The movement was tiny, almost unnoticeable, but it was enough to make him move. Alex had wondered what had made Yassen react to Hart, back on Santa Catarina. What impossibly small sign the man had seen to tip him off.

Maybe it was something like that. Alex had no idea just what about Ash's movement that seemed wrong, just that something did, deep down in some reptilian part of his brain that only ever cared about _threat_ or _safe._

The instant later, Alex's gun was perfectly aimed at Ash's head, his finger a millimetre from pulling the trigger. Ash, trained by MI6, SCORPIA, and painful experience, froze instantly. He didn't even finish the motion but simply stopped. Maybe Yu's reassurances that he would be most disappointed if Alex hurt Ash didn't count for much anymore. Maybe two and a half day of Alex's constant presence had put him enough on edge that he knew Alex would pull the trigger.

"Orion?"

Yu watched the two of them, perfectly calm and unruffled, but it spoke volumes to Alex that he was _Orion_ now.

"I don't know, sir." Of course, it would help if Alex could actually explain why Ash seemed like a threat all of a sudden. Something about the way he had shifted … "Don't let him move."

Yu's attention moved slightly. "Ash?"

Ash's expression hardened. His dark eyes had turned unreadable to Alex, but the tension was obvious. Not that Alex could blame him, with the gun aimed at him and his boss accusing him of being a double agent. "This is why you don't train a fifteen-year-old as an assassin, much less a Rider. He's as trigger-happy as Gregorovich, and Riders always had a knack for working around inconvenient orders. There's a reason MI6 didn't trust him enough to send backup when he asked for it."

Low blow. The reminder ignited something deep inside of Alex, dark and ugly and angry. For a moment, he was tempted to tighten his finger that fractions of an inch, call it an accident, and take whatever punishment Yu would dish out. For a moment. Then he pushed the thought aside. Maybe that was what Ash had tried to get him to do, maybe it was just a way to try and make Alex seem untrustworthy, but either way, Alex wasn't going to shoot him. He had never killed someone before just because he didn't like them and he wasn't about to start now. He would have enough blood on his hands by the end of it from SCORPIA's orders alone without adding his own count as well.

It also reminded him of something else, and the vague, uneasy feeling clicked.

"MI6 always sent me off with gadgets," Alex said, and Yu's attention returned to him. "Stuff to use in emergencies, if I had to escape … or if I needed backup. All I had to do at Point Blanc was push a button. They didn't show up but that wasn't the gadget's fault. I don't know if the Australians use that sort of thing, but …"

Alex trailed off. He hadn't even bothered with the 'sir' that Yu probably expected, but Yu didn't seem to care. His eyes had narrowed at Ash and the perfect stillness he managed under Alex's aim.

"Remove the table. Remove everything," he ordered the maid that was hovering anxiously nearby. She nodded and set to work immediately, helped by two of Yu's security guards. Alex supposed they trusted him to keep their boss safe while they worked.

"If he moves in the slightest, shoot him," Yu continued, this time aimed at Alex.

Alex's aim didn't waver and Ash didn't move. He barely even breathed. The table was removed, leaving Ash nowhere to hide at all.

Alex looked him over and tried to see him from Smithers' point of view. A semi-casual white shirt, but the buttons looked too small to hide anything. A pair of chinos and a belt that seemed more for show than actually necessary. Belt, then. Shoes. There could be stuff in his pockets as well, or possibly something strapped to him. It could be an implant, too, but the movement suggested it wasn't. Alex knew beyond any doubt that Ash had been about to reach for something, and the implants weren't the safest things. He still remembered Adams' warnings not to let the implant get damaged for his own sake.

The Australians undoubtedly knew where Yu's home was, there was no way to keep something of that size a secret. But they couldn't risk an attack unless Ash gave the signal. They would lose a valuable double agent otherwise. Since ASIS sent Ash in, they probably had plenty of suspicions about Yu but no hard evidence. Nothing that would hold up to scrutiny. They couldn't afford to blow their one chance. If they were anything like MI6, they would let Ash die before they would show their hand without a sure chance of taking Yu out.

"Orion?"

Alex understood the unspoken question. "I don't know, sir. They sent me off with stuff a kid would have, toys or candy. It could be an implant, but I don't think that's it. He wouldn't need to activate that." Yu knew his file. He would know what sort of implant Alex meant.

Somewhere during the course of it, Yu's opinion had settled in Alex's favour and they all knew it. Ash didn't speak, though his eyes spoke plenty. There was anger in them, but something resigned as well. He'd had one chance to escape, one chance to call for backup, and now it was about to be taken away.

Was that why Yu had wanted Alex there? To unsettle Ash? To force him to make mistakes he wouldn't normally have made? Alex wouldn't be surprised.

Yu glanced at his two security guards. "Strip him. Lock him up. I'll deal with him later."

Ash might have been able to fight his way past the two guards, but not Alex as well. He didn't resist and stayed pointedly silent as the guards worked.

Alex watched just long enough to see his weapons removed and the glimpse of a large, ugly scar that cut across his stomach. Then he looked away. He knew he should keep an eye on everything, just in case Ash tried something, but it felt like an invasion of his privacy somehow, and Alex didn't want to watch.

He didn't look back until the two guards had left with Ash. The pile of clothes remained. Yu glanced at him.

"Find it."

He didn't need to specify what he meant. Alex set to work. It didn't take long, either. He found the device embedded in the belt buckle, inactive for the moment, as well as several tools hidden in the soles of the shoes. Things for lock-picking and a small knife, all carefully placed so they wouldn't draw attention from a scanner.

Yu's expression tightened slightly. Alex wondered if he hadn't been quite willing to believe Ash's treason until just then.

"Excellent job, Alex," Yu said. "You do your mentor proud."

"They'll expect him to check in, sir. They'll be suspicious if he doesn't," Alex pointed out. He didn't want to help the man but he wanted to be in the middle of another situation like Santa Catarina and the SAS even less.

"I will see to that."

Yu's tone of voice promised nothing good. Alex wisely stayed quiet after that.

That evening, a private chopper went missing over the Alpine National Park. Being well after dark, the search had to be postponed until daylight. By the time it would finally be found, the wreckage would be burned beyond all recognition.

Alex heard a small plane land that night. He looked out the massive windows in his room and saw the lights from a small seaplane next to the jetty that led to Yu's home. It took off again an hour later.

He didn't ask about Ash, and Yu didn't mention him again. For all Alex knew, the man was gone like he had never even existed. Yu's enemies had a tendency to vanish, Yassen had said. Alex believed that now.

Alex left Australia two weeks after he arrived with the approval of another member of SCORPIA's executive board, comprehensive mental notes about Yu's security set-up, and the distinct urge to spend the next two days scrubbing every last reminder of that country house off of his skin.

Alex Rider wasn't usually the type to want someone dead, but whatever plans Yassen had for Yu, Alex wholeheartedly approved of them.

* * *

A/N 2: Alex suspected in _Snakehead_ that ASIS already had a pretty good idea that Ash was the mole, but Ash got killed before they could do much about it (well, beyond sending Alex off as bait). In this case, they had more time and acted on that suspicion.

Next: Several bits of the puzzle fall into place. Funny enough, Alex didn't know there was a puzzle in the first place.


	38. Vacancies

A/N: I need to get a good chapter buffer again, so the next chapter will be in a full week.

LookingforAlaska: It was the same plane but a different destination. Yu really wanted to make Ash pay, but interrogating him took priority. It's tough, the sacrifices Yu has to make for SCORPIA sometimes.

* * *

"I heard about Ash," Yassen greeted him. "You did well."

It was close enough to pass for 'welcome back, glad you're alive' in Yassen-terms, and Alex wasn't really surprised. "Thank you."

Yu had probably told him, or Yassen had found out on his own. He knew how to get information.

Yassen had booked them together, a luxury suite like part of Alex had come to – uncomfortably – expect. Their cover was father and son, and Alex's ID had him as fifteen-year-old Sacha Mathieu, a French national.

"Yu was pleased. This is not necessarily a good thing."

"I know." Alex was reminded of the horrible thought of being around the man for months and years. "He thought I would have made a nice second in command, except you claimed me first." Alex swallowed against the sudden nausea. "Thank you for that, by the way."

"He has an obsession with all things English," Yassen replied. "I kept you away from the board for as long as I could for a number of reasons. Yu was one of them. He would have preferred someone who could still be moulded to suit his demands. You were unsuitable by that point."

"He said that with the right training … " Alex trailed off. The thought was enough to give him chills.

"Indoctrination, I assume." Yassen made it sound like it was nothing out of the ordinary, and the nausea surged again. "He rules by fear but he would want to ensure a stronger hold on a second in command. He has never had one to my knowledge."

Right. Charming man, Yu.

"Ash has been given to Dr Three for interrogation," Yassen continued. "He was a high-ranking operative. His treason was unfortunate."

Understatement of the century. Alex wasn't really surprised. With the sort of influence Ash had held, his treason could be a problem for more than just Yu. Alex couldn't find it in himself to feel bad for the man. Ash had killed Alex's parents. Whatever Dr Three decided to put him through, he had it coming.

"I wanted to shoot him," Alex confessed. "I almost did. He tried to provoke me. I almost pulled the trigger."

Yassen looked thoughtful. "Perhaps he wanted to cast doubt on your reliability. Perhaps he wanted you to pull the trigger. Yu is not known for his mercy. His people are known at times to prefer suicide to whatever punishment Yu might have in mind."

Alex tried to imagine what sort of punishment could make someone do that without even a token effort to run, and he suppressed a shudder. Maybe Yassen was right. Maybe Ash had wanted him to shoot.

"I don't care. I haven't killed anyone just because I didn't like them, and I'm not about to start now."

Yassen didn't comment on it. Alex didn't doubt that he had, in fact, killed people for the sole reason that he didn't like them or found them incompetent, and he hadn't given it a second thought. Alex also didn't doubt that Yassen would do it again without blinking.

Alex wasn't Yassen and they both knew that. Maybe Yassen didn't agree with the few morals Alex had managed to cling on to, but at least he didn't mention it.

"Your secondary assignment?" Yassen asked instead.

Yu's security and any holes in it. Alex took a deep breath and started talking.

"It's an English country house from the late eighteen-hundreds that was imported from Britain and reassembled on site. There's only one road leading to it with several defences -"

It took him the better part of two hours to finish his report, with frequent questions from Yassen included.

Alex had sat through a number of hypothetical planning sessions before. Yassen felt they were educational, and Alex reluctantly had to agree. If nothing else, Yassen had taught him to get to the point and pay attention to the important details. Sometimes the sessions had been based on one of Yassen's old assignments. Sometimes they were inspired by some news story or another. Sometimes he got a lot of details. Sometimes he got the bare minimum.

It always felt a bit like a test, but this time it felt like … more.

"- with scanners and the house continuously swept for surveillance and the level of general security, he's got it pretty much locked down. I don't know how it looked before someone tried to kill him, but he takes security seriously now," Alex concluded.

For now, the thorough report existed nowhere but in his own mind. There was nothing on paper but a few sketches he had drawn during the report, no real evidence at all, and Yassen had made sure the room was secure.

Yassen nodded slightly. "But there are weaknesses." It was not a question.

Alex hesitated. "A few, depending on the approach. If you need to get inside the actual house, the staff entrance by the kitchens is the best bet. It's still got heavy security but less than the rest. With the amount of supplies that get delivered, convenience got a say in it, too, I guess. The staff can't be bribed and I doubt they can be threatened or blackmailed, either. It would take a lot, anyway. They're terrified of him. The staff entrance at night is the best bet. There's always someone there, at least when Yu's home, but it would still be easier than at day. There are what looks like a couple of other weak spots, but those are deliberate traps."

He could see the intel get filed away in some corner of Yassen's mind. "And from the outside?"

"The closest realistic point for a sniper is two and a half thousand yards away to my estimate, and even that one is kind of dubious. They have to be aware of that spot, so they must have decided it's too far away or there's some sort of security there that I don't know about. He likes his garden, though. He'll take his afternoon tea there if he can. Beyond that, the biggest weakness is his helicopter."

Another slight nod. "If you had to choose a method?"

"Shoulder-launched missile fired from a fast boat," Alex said immediately. He had expected that question and had already considered it. "In and out before anyone can react. You'd need to know when he was travelling, of course, and there might be defences against that kind of thing that I didn't see, but that would be my choice. Have a spotter somewhere on land to confirm Yu is on board, you can do that a lot further away than a sniper would be, and shoot down his helicopter. Even if he survived the explosion, the impact would kill him. It's overkill but it's the only realistic option I saw, and that's assuming he doesn't have some sort of defence against that, too."

There was something in Yassen's eyes that looked like sharp, calculating interest. He pulled the sketched map of the place that Alex had drawn to the middle of the table.

"Show me."

Alex took a sharp breath. Nodded. Then set to work.

* * *

Two days later, at the end of August, SCORPIA sent Alex to one of their psychologists. Dr Steiner focused on the students at Malagosto, but he was far from the only doctor of various kinds on SCORPIA's payroll.

Dr Withka was a woman around sixty, with greying hair and sharp eyes. Alex didn't want to be there, but it hadn't exactly been up for debate.

Her office was in a nice, quiet neighbourhood on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi, and the air conditioning was set somewhere between glacial and Arctic. She wore a business suit, which fit the temperature just fine. Alex, however, was starting to regret his choice of a t-shirt and jeans.

"Orion," she greeted him when he arrived. He had expected 'Mr Rider' or 'Alex'. He wondered what exactly it said about things that she used the name that SCORPIA had given him.

"Dr Withka," Alex greeted in turn.

"I have been charged by the executive board with a psychological evaluation of you," she said without preamble. "You're the youngest operative we've ever had and the only one who did not come to us as an adult. To be frank, no one is quite sure what your training and assignments will do to your psychological development. We're here to figure that out. I doubt you will find it pleasant but it is unfortunately necessary."

Oh, that was so very reassuring. She didn't look the least bit bothered about having an armed operative in her office, either. She was probably used to dealing with that sort of thing, then. He wondered how often SCORPIA felt the need to send their assassins to see a shrink. What did they even talk about? Their careers?

"Right," Alex said, resigned to his fate. "So, that ink test again?"

He remembered that from Malagosto. He also remembered it had mostly reminded him of death. He didn't expect that to have changed much at all since then.

"Perhaps at a later date," Withka replied.

And that implied that this was going to be more than just one talk. The day just kept getting better and better.

"For now," Withka continued, "we're just going to talk."

"Talk." Alex couldn't quite keep the suspicion from his voice.

"Talk," Withka agreed. "We'll start easy. Tell me about the most interesting lesson you learned from Cossack."

Most interesting? Alex could probably pinpoint the ones he had liked or hated or feared the most. For a moment he just sat there and stared at her. Most interesting. In the good or the bad way? He didn't ask. The way he chose to interpret the word was probably part of it.

Alex had been happy to avoid that ink test. He had the peculiar suspicion now that he had walked straight into another trap in trying to avoid it.

* * *

Yassen was at work by his computer when Alex returned from his appointment, feeling a little like he had just gone three rounds with a hurricane and lost. The appointment had lasted all morning, a full three and a half hours, and his brain felt rattled. Somewhere along the line he had given up on wondering about the deeper meaning and just answered. If he hesitated, she asked further. If he lied, she had an uncanny ability to spot it.

If she ever got tired of being a shrink, Alex was sure she could have an excellent career as an interrogator instead. Maybe that was her retirement plan.

There was lunch waiting for him; a large burger and a massive pile of chips, all of it hot and clearly straight from the kitchens. Someone had to have told Yassen he was on his way in good enough time to have room service deliver the food.

Alex's stomach, ignored all morning, made its presence known. Loudly.

"Eat," Yassen said. "We can talk later."

He didn't need to say it twice. There was a message in the fact that it was burger and chips, too, and not something healthier. A reward. He had done all right, then. Or possibly something was very, very wrong, but based on Yassen's behaviour, Alex guessed the former.

Either way, Alex was happy to demolish his lunch. No longer hungry, his thoughts felt a little clearer again, and Yassen glanced pointedly at Alex's backpack before he returned to his own work.

Alex bit back a sigh. The textbooks that Yassen had procured for him were in French, in keeping with their cover and probably for the added bonus of making Alex practice the language.

Alex was surprised he even had time to work on them. Normally they would be off again on some assignment or another. Yassen had already been back in Abu Dhabi for several days by the time Alex returned from Australia, but they hadn't been given another assignment yet.

He grabbed a book at random and then almost put it back. Physics. Of course it was physics. Alex sighed and opened the book. Complaining would do nothing, anyway.

For a long while neither of them spoke. Only the sound of Yassen's laptop and Alex's haphazard notes and occasional doodles in the book broke the silence. It was maybe an hour later when Yassen leaned back in his chair and turned his attention to Alex again.

"You passed the initial test. Dr Withka gave her approval."

Wait, what? Alex looked up from his textbook. There was a document open on the laptop, though he couldn't read it from that far away.

"What test? And _initial_ test? I thought it was just a psychological evaluation." That was what everyone had told him, anyway. Then again, Yassen had also said that everything was a test; Alex just didn't think he meant it that literally.

If it had been a test … had he done something wrong? Yassen had already punished him for the thing with Fox, and Alex couldn't think of anything else he might have done wrong. He had done all right in Australia, and he hadn't messed anything up in Zermatt, either.

Yassen was silent for long seconds. That didn't help on Alex's sudden apprehension. "It is, perhaps, a bit of both. Two evaluations at once. It was not a test like the ones you faced at Malagosto. There was no punishment for failing."

Because that made everything clear as mud. Alex was about to open his mouth and tell Yassen as much when the man continued.

"The executive board has expressed … some interest in promoting me to board member. It is widely believed I would offer you the position as my second in command, should this come to pass. SCORPIA wished to ensure you would be a suitable candidate for the position before I had the chance to offer it to you. They wouldn't normally have bothered, but you are exceptionally young for an operative, much less the potential right hand of a board member."

Yassen. As a member of the executive board. Alex wasn't sure what to say, and so he stayed silent. It was just as well, because Yassen continued a moment later.

"The requirements for a second are different than from normal operatives. You must not be afraid to give bad news. You must understand the value of SCORPIA resources. You must be perfectly, unwaveringly loyal and trustworthy."

"I'm Hunter's son," Alex pointed out, quite reasonably. "Former MI6. And you know what happened on Santa Catarina."

 _You know what I would use the intel for,_ he didn't say.

His comment was vague enough that anyone listening would believe it referred to his failure to capture Ben Daniels, though he and Yassen both knew the truth.

"You still went to the board and took full responsibility for it," Yassen pointed out. "Foolishness, perhaps, and not the sort of thing anyone on the board themselves would have done, but desirable qualities in a subordinate. If you would do that for a lesser combat team you have a minor attachment to, what would you do to see the will of the board carried out in my name, then?"

Good point.

Alex considered Nile, ruthless and efficient, and he thought about his own relationship with Yassen. The first time Alex had met him, the man had seemed utterly emotionless. He still did to most other people, but Alex had learned to read him. Read the silence and the stillness, understand the minute shifts and the choice of words that spoke volumes to Alex.

Yassen Gregorovich was a hard man to read, much less predict, but Alex had managed as well as anyone could reasonably be expected to, short of being an actual mind-reader.

The realisation hit around two seconds later.

"You planned this. You knew they were thinking about your promotion. You've been training me for this."

There was no way he hadn't. Alex had already functioned as his second in command in Miami during the attack on Ramos' home and held that position officially during the assignment on Santa Catarina. He had managed well in Miami, so his responsibility during their following assignment had been increased, too. He had been Yassen's right hand, his eyes and ears when he couldn't be everywhere at once, and Yassen had trusted him to do that job.

Because he had trained Alex for it from the very beginning. Because five months of isolation had meant that Alex adapted and learned to understand and anticipate Yassen's demands, or he suffered the consequences.

"I've trained you to survive," Yassen corrected. "Your ability to function as my second was an unplanned but not unwelcome side effect."

Right. Sure it was. Cold logic told him that explanation could be perfectly true. Experience told him that it might be the truth but definitely not the whole truth. Alex took a deep breath.

"Do I have an actual choice?"

Yassen shrugged slightly, like he hadn't just rattled Alex's entire view of the past year. "Of course. Most would agree without hesitation but the choice is there. It would be a significant promotion in terms of salary and influence both. Few would turn that down."

"What's the catch?" There was always a catch, especially with an opportunity that convenient. Access to intel, influence, and the ability to use it? There had to be more to it.

"As my second, you would be my extended will. Technically my bodyguard as well if required, though I think we can both agree I don't need it. You would be expected to obey immediately and without question. You would represent me in all things. Refusing an order would not be an option."

And there it was, the catch he had been waiting for. "A proper little SCORPIA pet, you mean. Do I get a collar, too?"

Yassen didn't dispute the comment. "There are those who would commit mass murder for a position like that."

Alex didn't doubt it. Sure, it was the job as Yassen Gregorovich's second in command, and even Alex wasn't blind to Yassen's towering reputation for merciless practicality, but he wasn't worse than any of the current members of the board. In fact, Alex was pretty sure Yassen would be a much better boss than anyone else he could think of. A lot less likely to consider his people expendable, as long as they lived up to his standards.

Alex remembered Yu's comment about Yassen's claim, and one more piece fell into place and made him all the more grateful that everyone considered him Yassen's. If they didn't, Yu might very well have decided to break up that Gregorovich-Rider partnership and reassign Alex to himself, prior training be damned. With Alex trained to Yassen's standards and as his future second, though … Yu was polite enough to leave it be. That, or he considered it too much of a bother to retrain Alex. Probably the latter.

Yassen's possible promotion wasn't a spur of the moment decision. It had been carefully considered. Yassen had been tested, too. Alex hadn't known it at the time but looking back, he could see it now. Miami had been a big operation, almost large enough to be given to one of the board, but they had given it to Yassen instead. To someone who normally worked alone and almost solely as an assassin. When he had managed that operation exceptionally well, the board had put him in charge of Santa Catarina and made him the representative of SCORPIA. Alex couldn't imagine they would have done that unless they had plans for him that reached beyond just an operative. They knew he planned to retire from the field within the near future. This was their solution.

Yassen had passed his tests. Now Alex had passed his, too. One of them, anyway.

Life as Yassen's second would leave Alex exposed to the board. It would keep him safe to a degree as well, under the protection of Yassen and with no one able to override that authority, but he would be out there in the world and visible in a way he hadn't been before, not even as Orion.

"And if I refuse?"

He needed to hear both options. Had to be sure just what the alternative was, because assuming anything with SCORPIA could be lethal. Yassen seemed to understand. He didn't seem to mind the question, at least. He would have wanted the full details in Alex's place, too.

"You will be Orion," Yassen replied. "SCORPIA trained you as an operative and you have made an excellent impression so far. You will work for SCORPIA at least until the end of your exclusive contract, like any other operative. You will be given assignments that would benefit from your talents. Perhaps the board would take your preferences into account, perhaps not. I would make an effort to keep you under my influence still, but you have enough unique skills that you have drawn the attention of a number of the members of the board. You would not work solely under me. There would be nothing stopping you from claiming Sagitta when needed, but for most assignments you would be on your own. You are one of Malagosto's elite. Partnerships are rare. Most work alone. Few assassinations require two operatives. Those that do tend to be a small part of a larger operation."

Alex nodded slowly. Two options, then. Life as an operative on his own, no longer just Cossack's partner but _Orion_ , one of the future elite. No support for the most part, no help, no one. Or accept the promotion. Gain access to highly classified material that he probably wouldn't be in a position to see for years, if ever, and become Yassen's extended will in return. What Nile was to Rothman and now to Chase. Perfectly loyal, perfectly obedient.

Then there were Yassen's plans for Yu, whatever they were. Alex had dutifully passed on his assessment of Yu's home and security as well as the few potential weak spots, but that had been all. Yassen hadn't commented beyond approval of a job well done once Alex had answered the last of his questions. Was Alex's intel gathering just for contingency plans? Was it a test of some kind? Did Yassen really plan to assassinate one of SCORPIA's most influential? And if he did, was it only Yu or did Yassen's plans reach even further?

Alex didn't know and he couldn't ask. It was too dangerous and he knew Yassen wouldn't answer. Instead he changed the topic slightly.

"You said this was the initial test."

"Ultimately, the board still needs to unanimously approve of my promotion. They also need to accept my choice of second if you are my candidate. You are, as always, an unusual case. For your age and your history both. Before that, I expect Dr Withka will wish to see you for another session or two. Not merely for your suitability as my second, but to gain a better understanding of just what your training and new career means for your development."

Because he was fifteen years old, fourteen when Yassen started his training, and no one had treated him like a kid for even a second. He had been held to adult standards from the very beginning and treated the same as people twice his age. He had been around mostly adults for more than a year. Even Alex knew that wasn't normal for someone his age.

"You interacted with Jacob Sullivan and the Graff children for a while," Yassen continued. "How did those interactions go?"

He was starting to sound like Dr Steiner and Dr Withka. Alex shrugged. "They were clients, kind of. It was always going to be a little awkward."

He ignored the twinge of guilt at the memory of Jacob, used to it by now. Hanna and Johann were both safe if Yassen spoke the truth – and in this case Alex didn't doubt it, or Yassen would have used their fate in any way he could to hammer Alex's lesson home – but that didn't mean he hadn't gambled with their lives and safety when he let Fox go.

"That was not the whole reason, and I think you know that," Yassen said. "You have not been around others your own age since you left London, and you have stood apart from them to some degree since your first mission for MI6. You have been treated as an adult, and so you act like one. For the most part, at least," he conceded.

"So they're sending me to see a shrink?" Alex was a little dubious about that reasoning. Then again, he was a little dubious about the board's reasoning in general, so there was that.

"Your age is a weakness as much as it is a valuable asset. No one wants you broken on accident, or unable to interact with your peers at all. Part of what makes you so very valuable is your ability to pass for a harmless child."

Alex supposed that made sense. Probably. It was a skill with a definite end date, though. He was already a lot taller and bulkier than he had been a year ago. He wouldn't look innocent and harmless for that much longer.

"That's why we haven't been given a new assignment yet?"

Alex had wondered about that but hadn't exactly minded. It was just weird. He didn't want to kill people but he also knew it cost SCORPIA a lot of money in lost profits not to have him and Yassen working. He had expected a new assignment to be waiting for them – or him, maybe, because it had just become clear to Alex that a partnership didn't necessarily mean they would never send Alex on solo assignments – but nothing had shown up. It could have been downtime but Yassen had said nothing about that, and he usually did.

"My potential promotion and your psychological evaluation was considered of somewhat greater importance."

Yassen's classic gift for understatement, considering just how _much_ SCORPIA usually charged for someone of his calibre. It was a lot of lost profits not to have Yassen in the field.

Alex considered the situation. Then he nodded and took a deep breath. "So now what?"

He felt quite abruptly lost. What _was_ he supposed to do? Assignments he knew how to handle. Follow orders and fulfil the objectives. This was high-level SCORPIA politics of the sort where he instinctively knew that one misstep could get him killed.

Cool, blue eyes watched him calmly. "You make a decision."

"Just like that?" Alex had barely had the time to adjust to Yassen's explanation, much less consider his options. If Yassen had already known, couldn't he have given Alex more time?

Yassen seemed to understand the unspoken question. "Advance notice of the point of the evaluation would have influenced the results."

Alex supposed that made sense. That didn't mean he had to like it. He had left Dr Withka with the impression it had been a normal psychological evaluation for reasons that weren't Alex's to wonder about. Two hours later, Yassen was apparently about to become a member of the board and Alex had to decide his future again with no more warning than Yassen had given him in London … and only slightly more information.

Assuming the board approved of Yassen's promotion, anyway. Unanimously. There were seven members of the board these days. Alex wondered what the odds were that they could all agree on something like that.

He didn't ask Yassen. He didn't ask what would happen if the board didn't agree, either. About Yassen's promotion or Alex's potential place as his second, though he knew the latter was a lot more likely to be an issue than the former. Since they had sent him to Dr Withka, he had to assume they weren't entirely against the idea. They wouldn't have bothered otherwise. Still …

"Bit of a short notice." Alex was proud that he managed to keep his voice steady.

"Perhaps," Yassen conceded. "If you have no desire to hold the position, I need to know and make other plans. You can work your way up through the ranks on your own, or you can accept my offer. I have already elevated you far beyond any newly graduated operative. Even Nile was a year out of Malagosto when Rothman claimed him. This is as much time as I can give you. Your decision, Alex."

Alex had the oddest feeling that 'other plans' included more than just finding another possible second in command. He didn't ask about that, either, though. He suspected it belonged in the same category as those orders to look for weaknesses in Yu's security.

He could be Orion. He would be lonely but he wouldn't be under the constant, watchful eye of the board. Or he could do what he had promised himself, his reason for joining SCORPIA in the first place, and take the chance to do whatever he could to take SCORPIA down. He would get no better chance than this and Yassen had to know it. Alex didn't know what the man was playing at and he knew he wouldn't get an answer if he asked.

Play his role, then. Learn everything he could. And in doing so, in sticking with Yassen, he would be going along with whatever plans the man had. And he had plans, Alex knew that.

If Yassen was willing to trust a double agent at his back, Alex really didn't have any excuse not to accept.

"Your second. Sir," Alex added, a little belated. He still wasn't used to that sort of respectful address when it was just the two of them, not unless things were serious. He would probably have to learn.

"You can be Alex when it's just the two of us," Yassen said quietly. "But nowhere else."

No longer 'Yassen' or 'Cossack', then, but 'Mr Gregorovich', even to Alex. The board would accept nothing less. That would take a while to get used to. Alex knew he had been very casual around Yassen. He supposed that would change, too. He didn't think Yassen wanted someone like Nile but he would have to show enough respect to satisfy the board. He knew that they would consider his behaviour around Yassen not just as reflecting on his attitude to Yassen himself but the whole board, and they did not appreciate disrespect.

"Of course," Yassen continued, "there is still the final decision to be made. They may still change their mind. We'll find out."

How very reassuring.

With Alex's answer out of the way, Yassen returned to his laptop. Alex returned to his textbooks, but he had a hard time focusing on them again.

This was what he wanted. The intel and influence to do something. He still wondered what he was about to get himself into.

* * *

A/N: There are nine members of the board still alive at the beginning of _Scorpia_ : Grendel, Rothman, Dr Three, Kurst, The Australian with No Name (I figured he was identical with Brendan Chase in _Scorpia Rising_ ), Yu, Kroll, Mikato, and Duval. Grendel got assassinated, and Rothman is currently slightly detained, which leaves seven. Since SCORPIA didn't suffer the same humiliation and financial blows at Alex's hand, they could take their time filling those vacant seats, and I think they would prefer Yassen on the board rather than the new members we see in _Scorpia Rising._

Next: Alex meets the board and rather wishes he didn't.


	39. Paris

A/N: Like last time, it'll be a week until the next chapter.

LookingforAlaska: Razim is currently on the board's list of possible candidates. He's not their first choice, though, and they chose to focus on Yassen since they aren't under the same pressure to redeem their name as in canon. Razim is Kurst's next choice for an available seat, but not all of the board agrees. In canon, Kurst came out on top in the political struggle on the board; here he doesn't have that influence. As for the others – the Grimaldi twins are the next choice the board can probably agree on (though not everyone approves of the idea of two board members quite that loyal to each other), and Seamus is a bit further down the list.

* * *

Alex spent two more mornings with Dr Withka before she was satisfied with his evaluation. Alex didn't get to read it himself but Yassen did and he didn't seem to feel that Alex had done too bad of a job. If he had, Yassen would have told him.

It was unnerving to realise that SCORPIA spent a lot more time on his mental health than MI6 ever did. For selfish reasons, sure, to make sure he wasn't a danger and that they wouldn't break a good operative on accident, but MI6 hadn't even bothered with that.

Then again, MI6 considered him an expendable asset, while SCORPIA was about to promote him to the highest echelons. Through Yassen, sure, but still. He would have access to a lot of potentially-damaging intel. They would want to make sure he was completely reliable and up to the task. Even Alex would admit he was very young for that kind of responsibility.

At least it gave him a week to come to terms with that he had agreed to. He doubted it would really sink in until he was in the middle of it, and there were probably a lot of uncomfortable details he had never considered that he would only find out after the fact, but it was still a week to adapt. A big improvement over the half an hour Yassen had given him to pack and write his letters in London.

Yassen was mostly busy that week. Alex didn't ask with what. He spent the time brushing up on the shooting range instead. It had been a long time since he had any kind of regular practice with his guns. It had been during the week in the villa with Yassen. He hadn't had the chance during his week off and hadn't wanted to, either, and there had been no time in Australia.

Alex picked a public shooting range. He knew he would be welcome at Malagosto but he didn't want the attention now. He wanted the peace and quiet to come to grips with what he had agreed to.

Yassen seemed to know. He didn't say anything, at least, and let Alex do what he wanted to.

The decisive meeting took place in Paris. Maybe it was convenience. Maybe it was tradition. Alex thought he remembered from Yassen's lessons that SCORPIA had been founded during a meeting in Paris, all those years ago.

Maybe it was sheer pettiness and the fact that they could get away with having a board meeting in the heart of western Europe, right under the noses of any number of agencies that dearly wanted them captured or killed. Alex wouldn't rule that one out, either.

Nobody travelled together. Alex would have been surprised otherwise. Dr Three had left Malagosto almost a week prior, though he probably had other things to see to as well. Yassen and Alex flew first class to Paris Charles de Gaulle the day before the meeting.

Yassen sat him down in their suite that evening in Paris for the last instructions.

"This is your last chance to change your mind," he said. "There is no guarantee this will go well. Their decision is not a given. If you go, you tie your life to mine. If the board decides against me, if they decide that I am untrustworthy and decide to remove me, your loyalty and obedience to me makes you too unreliable to leave alive. They would regret the wasted investment but that would not save you."

Alex didn't ask why the board might decide Yassen wasn't trustworthy. He suspected it was another one of those things the man wouldn't answer. He did understand why they would decide to get rid of Alex himself as well if that happened. As far as SCORPIA was concerned, Orion was perfectly loyal and perfectly obedient, but to Yassen above all. If the board turned on Yassen, they could very likely have a vengeful operative on their hands with nothing to lose and every incentive to get even.

Looking at it that way, he could even understand why a potential candidate for the board might not survive if the board decided against them. It would be unlikely after that much work had been put into it, but if they did … Alex could imagine the anger and humiliation some candidates would feel. Judged and found wanting at the last second. Some would be out for revenge, and Yassen Gregorovich was a deadly enemy to gain.

The board had quite enough enemies as it was without adding to it … even among its current members.

Yassen's files had been as thorough as they could be. He didn't know more than a fraction of the politics that went on, but he knew more than most outsiders just by virtue of his position and network of contacts.

SCORPIA's executive board was an ever-changing, loosely-connected bunch of temporary alliances that could shift at any moment. The balance of power remained mostly stable but that didn't stop the occasional attempt to gain more influence.

Rothman had arranged for Grendel's assassination when the man decided to retire. He was a potential threat, a loose end, and so she had killed him. Two other board members had died to assassinations over the years, and the surviving members had all been the targets of attempted assassinations more than once.

There had been an attempt on Yu's life in November. Yassen suspected Kroll's involvement. Kurst had apparently made several grab for power, too, but failed against a unified board. Well, unified until someone showed weakness.

Alex wondered about a life like that, always looking over your shoulder, never able to trust anyone, and one wrong move from death.

… All in all, it didn't sound that different from his MI6 career. Or his SCORPIA one, for that matter.

"I'm staying," he said. He didn't offer his reasons, and Yassen didn't ask. Just nodded.

"The meeting is at one. Morning run is at six, and we will leave at nine."

Alex wondered a little about the early time but didn't ask. Yassen had his reasons and he would find out soon enough. Some questions weren't worth the effort. He had learned that, too.

* * *

The weather was pleasant. It had rained overnight but the sky had mostly cleared when they left the hotel that morning at six for a run. It was a two-hour circuit of the heart of Paris, and Alex wondered if that was Yassen's idea of sightseeing. He had been in Paris with Hunter for a week, all those years ago. Had they done the same run then?

They were back with plenty of time to shower, have breakfast, and get changed before they left again at nine. Alex had a thin jacket along but he had shoved it into his backpack. Yassen had his jacket draped over one arm. Their luggage was still in their carefully secured room that had been booked for two nights.

"We will work out proper tonight. I think you'll want to burn off some energy."

Alex didn't doubt it.

Yassen seemed to have a destination in mind, though Alex didn't know what it was. He just followed along as they walked down narrow streets and took in the surroundings. He had been in Paris before, but never really like this.

Alex did recognise what had to be their destination when they approached it. The church of Sacré-Cœur rose tall and white ahead of them, already with a few tourists around. Yassen slowed down. Stopped when they reached the top of the stairs.

For the moment, there was no one close enough to hear them, and Yassen began to speak.

"I only ever saw your mother once," he said. "Right here. When we were in Paris on an assignment. Hunter said he had personal business and asked me not to mention it to SCORPIA. To Rothman. I was curious, so I followed him from a safe distance. He met your mother on the terrace. I don't know if she knew about his undercover work, but I know she was happy to see him." Yassen paused. "You are frequently told that you take after Hunter, but your hair is from your mother. Hers was longer, but it reminds me much of yours when you let it grow."

Alex's breath caught. He had seen her in photos, the few Ian had, but that was all. If she had a file with SCORPIA after they found out about Hunter's true loyalties, he had never seen it.

No one had talked much about her. Her, or his dad. Not Ian, and not Mrs Jones, who had obviously known them, too. Ash must have known her as well, but they hadn't exactly been in a position to talk, and Alex wouldn't have believed a word Ash had said, anyway. Most of what he knew came from SCORPIA's file and Yassen's rare remarks. That, and offhanded comments from those who had known Hunter, and those were mainly about how much he looked like his father.

But Yassen had seen her. They had never interacted, and he had never known more than that she was Hunter's wife, but he had _seen_ her.

"She was quite small," Yassen continued. "I don't know if it came across in the photos you have seen. Your physical build comes from your father, but your hair comes from her. Hunter's was darker. She was pregnant at the time, six months along, I believe. She must have known it was a risk to come here, they both did, but it was all they could do with his undercover work. She was alone as far as I could tell. It's quite possible no one else even knew she was there."

Alex hadn't known much about her. He knew she had been a nurse and how old they were when they had married. But no one else had ever told him much, not even Ian, who had probably known her better than anyone still alive. Alex had asked repeatedly but never been given much in the way of answers. Ian didn't like to think about it. He didn't like to dwell on the past. And Alex, with no choice, had accepted it.

Alex had vague recollections of visiting his grandparents for a few days, but he had been very young and couldn't remember if they had been his mum or his dad's parents. He had never seen them again, and Ian had never mentioned them after that. He wouldn't even be surprised if it had just been a pair of agents sent to play a role for whatever reason as a part of Ian's job.

Yassen didn't know much about Helen Rider but what he knew, he was willing to share, and that one meeting told Alex more than Ian's few comments ever had.

His mum had to have known. Enough, at least, to go to another country when she was six months pregnant, just to catch a few stolen moments with her husband. Enough to keep it a secret from everyone. And John Rider had missed her enough to take that risk and go meet her, to risk an entire undercover mission to see his wife. He had obviously trusted that Yassen would stay quiet, but it was still a huge risk.

Was that what he could look forward to as well, assuming he lived long enough to find someone to fall in love with? Stolen moments and the constant fear that his family might be targeted?

Life as an assassin was lonely enough as it was. Assassin and double agent, just like Hunter. Alex wondered if there would ever be someone he would love as much as John and Helen had obviously loved each other.

Alex wiped the sudden wetness from his cheeks. Yassen didn't comment but simply waited for him to regain his composure.

"... Thank you," Alex finally said.

"I never spoke of it, but it would have been cruel to keep it from you," Yassen murmured. "And certainly since we are already here."

Maybe it was a reward, maybe it was another way to strengthen Alex's connection to him, but right there and then, Alex had the nagging suspicion that for all of Yassen's ulterior motives, just this once it was a genuine wish to share what he could with the orphan that had never known his parents.

* * *

They had early lunch at a local restaurant. By then, Alex could feel the nerves setting in, the nagging doubts about what exactly he was about to get himself into.

He still managed to eat, though he barely tasted the food. They walked to the meeting and stopped for an ice cream along the way. With the Seine on one side and narrow streets on the other, Alex thought he would have liked to go exploring if the circumstances had been different.

Maybe he would, one day. If he lived that long.

If Yassen was nervous, it didn't show.

SCORPIA's Paris office for the executive board was a heavily modified tourist boat. Its name was _Le Débiteur_ and from the outside it looked no different from any other pleasure boat gliding up and down the Seine. To the trained eye, some things were different. There weren't seats for a few hundred tourists behind the broad glass walls, but just one large table and eight seats around it with a great deal of space between them. The crew consisted of a handful of people in total along with four men that watched the surroundings with the distinct air of military training.

There were two guards by the entrance to the boat, and Alex didn't doubt for a second that the wide expanses of glass were all bulletproof, or that the boat had any number of other security measures, both defensive and offensive.

No one spoke to them when they arrived. On foot, they were just a father and son out to enjoy the pleasant September weather.

Three of the board had arrived already from what Alex could see – Kurst, Kroll, and Chase – but Yassen stopped outside the door and waited. The remaining four showed up in steady intervals, all of them alone. Dr Three favoured them with a slight, fond smile when he arrived, but otherwise they were ignored.

Duval, the current chairman, was the last arrival. He ignored Alex but nodded once at Yassen. Alex assumed that meant something, because when Duval entered the boardroom, Yassen followed suit. Alex hesitated for a moment but a glance from Yassen had him follow as well.

The boardroom was still. Like stepping into a tomb. With the combined number of deaths the people in the room had caused, Alex supposed it was a good comparison.

No one bothered with greetings, not even Yassen. There was an available seat at the table, though no one offered that Yassen could take it and he made no move to do so. No one spoke. No one shifted. Alex wasn't sure if any of them even breathed. No sounds came in from the outside, and there wasn't even air conditioning running. It was just … still. Dead.

Alex stayed right by the door and did his best to become one with the glass wall. He didn't need to be told that this was likely the one and only time he would ever be present at a board meeting, at least for the next many years. The board did not accept outsiders at their meetings. Alex was there as Yassen's second. If it went well, he would have access to highly classified information, anyway. If not, he would be dead. It was simply convenient to keep him close to Yassen.

Alex focused on a spot on the glass wall across from him, very careful not to focus on any one of the board. He could see them out of the corner of his eyes, though, and he knew who they were.

Dr Three, Kurst, Chase, and Yu, those Alex had met in person. Kroll, Mikato, and Duval he knew only from the files Yassen had shared. Duval settled down by the end of the table. He was French and in his mid-fifties, exquisitely dressed, and with a neat beard that had long since turned grey. He had the long, slender fingers of a pianist. Alex imagined those hands had killed quite a few people over the years.

Alex had that horrible feeling of no escape. With the door closed and guards outside, he would be dead if he so much as thought about leaving. The board was supposed to be unarmed, but Alex didn't believe that in the slightest.

He squashed the mounting panic and focused on breathing. Slow and steady, one breath after another, until he could focus proper again. He never moved during the entire thing, never let a single expression cross his face. Yassen would probably be able to spot his small panic attack, but Yassen was focused on the board, and the board was focused on him. Alex was ignored for now.

Yassen stopped at the other end of the table. The sharp scrutiny he was under didn't seem to bother him in the least.

No one checked the time, but Alex didn't doubt it was one on the dot when Duval opened the folder in front of him. There was nothing else on the table. Just their papers, each a set they had brought themselves. There weren't even glasses and pitchers of water. Nobody trusted anyone else not to poison the whole board.

Beneath them, the boat came to life. The scenery beyond the windows began to move as they set off.

"Gentlemen," Duval said, the first word Alex had heard anyone speak in the room so far. Even his accent sounded refined. "The first order of business is our potential new member of the board."

He didn't specify it was Yassen. He didn't add any further details. He didn't need to. Alex was sure the board had debated it already, and probably quite a few times. They had been testing Yassen for a while.

Watching the board gathered, maybe it wasn't a surprise they wanted someone relatively young for one of the vacant seats. Alex had done the maths and Julia Rothman hadn't even been thirty at the time SCORPIA was founded. Yassen wasn't quite that young, but he was still a decade younger than the youngest member of the current board.

Yu was getting old and his illness had taken its toll. Dr Three wasn't young, either, but he carried his age better. It probably helped that he had assistants for a lot of the practical work, two or three of them that Alex had seen. Yassen had been involved in most of Alex's RTI, partially because it was Alex and partially to handle the more physically demanding parts, too. Alex wondered briefly if Ash was still alive. He wasn't going to ask.

Dr Three liked to devote his time to research and writing these days. Alex knew the doctor's most recent work, a two-thousand page monstrosity about torture, was on the list of things Yassen expected him to read.

Alex was in absolutely no rush to get to that particular part of his curriculum. The lessons at Malagosto had been detailed enough as it was.

Of the rest of the board members, none of them were younger than their late forties. Dangerous people, even without their weapons, but they weren't getting any younger.

Alex doubted Yu would last another decade, even if he died from natural causes. Dr Three would eventually want to devote all of his time to research, Alex suspected. And both of them would be unlikely to be able to handle their responsibilities as board members long before that. Dr Three would be too old, Yu too fragile.

That would bring the board down to five, and that was not taking assassinations and the like into account. SCORPIA needed new blood. Alex strongly suspected Yassen was just the first of several new members the board would accept in the years to come.

Would SCORPIA be stronger for it? Weaker? Alex knew that depended mostly on the new members, but it was still another big uncertainty in his plans to do something about the organisation.

"You did well in Miami. The board was impressed," Duval continued. "The Graff assignment was less of a success but better for SCORPIA in the end. It will not count against you."

Yassen nodded slightly in response but didn't reply. No one mentioned the restrictions the board had put on them when it came to Hart. SCORPIA didn't play fair. Their best operatives were expected to succeed even with the deck stacked heavily against them.

"Mr Gregorovich will be an excellent addition to the board," Dr Three said. "There is little doubt about that."

"You always had a soft spot for him, doctor." Kroll this time. His voice was raspy and he was missing an eye. Alex had known that from the file but it was still unnerving to see in person. "SCORPIA was born from the intelligence community. Cossack is an assassin, not a true agent. You let your personal feelings interfere."

Mikato by his side smiled sharply. Alex caught a glimpse of something shiny. The diamond embedded in Mikato's tooth. Alex suppressed a shudder. That had to have hurt.

"I think we all know that our good doctor's favourites come out stronger for it, or they don't survive at all. He will be an asset to the board."

Kroll jerked slightly. It was the most movement Alex had seen anyone from the board do so far, and it didn't seem deliberate at all. The rest of the board ignored it. It was irrelevant to the issue at hand. Dr Three's attention did linger for few seconds. Alex wondered what he saw. He had an actual medical degree and plenty of experience with psychology as well.

"Whatever they call us at the moment, I think we can all agree that any Malagosto graduate is more than equal to whatever the intelligence agencies can dredge up these days," Chase said. "Whether they prefer to label us terrorists or not, SCORPIA is part of the intelligence community. I agree with the nomination. You think you can find a better candidate than Mr Gregorovich, then you've been out of the game for too long, Mr Kroll."

"So you'll ignore the possibility out of convenience." Kroll's expression hardened. "The board's strength lies in our diversity. We are all former intelligence, but we have combined first-hand experience with seven different agencies. What does a Malagosto graduate bring to that?"

"A predator's experience. Know your prey, Mr Kroll," Kurst said, his English as harsh and ugly as ever. "I support the nomination."

"Agreed." Duval's verdict was short and to the point. "Major Yu?"

"To refuse this promotion would be foolishness," Yu replied from his seat across from Kroll and Mikato. "SCORPIA will be stronger for it. Mr Gregorovich's place among us is well-earned."

"He hasn't been accepted yet!" Kroll's raised his voice, the effect like shouting in the silent room. "As per this very board's rules, it has to be an unanimous decision."

He coughed, like the words had dredged something out of his lungs, but it didn't seem to do much. His next breath sounded like a wheeze. "The board has managed just fine with seven members! I vote no."

"It must be unanimous," Yu agreed. "And it will be. I've grown quite fond of the diverse Australian wildlife over the years. Some of them have proven most useful. Did you know the blue-ringed octopus is native to the coastline by my home? A remarkable creature. I did not appreciate your insultingly clumsy attempt to remove me from this distinguished company, nor the dreadfully obvious play at control of SCORPIA. I think, Mr Kroll, that it is high time you retired in favour of someone less prone to – emotional fits."

Kroll looked like he wanted to say something but nothing came out. His mouth opened and closed but no words came past his lips. He jerked, like he tried to move, to get up, but his legs didn't respond and his arms remained unmoving against the armrest.

Alex had heard of the blue-ringed octopus. Malagosto covered a lot of things and poisons was just one item on a long list.

Paralysis. Inability to breathe. Death, if treatment didn't arrive fast enough.

There would be no help for Kroll. No treatment. No one moved. The room was silent. Kroll's breath was a laboured rasp that grew weaker fast.

Yu never moved but watched the display with perfect, unflappable calm.

Alex didn't move. Barely dared breathe. Every time he had killed, it had been fast. Every time he had seen Yassen kill, it had been fast. Crux's lesson in torture had been bad but this was – different. The torture had been nauseating. Kroll's slow death, paralysed by poison, was chilling. There were no screams, no crying or begging, just … silence. Silence interspaced with rasping.

Alex felt the bile in the back of his throat and looked focused on the vast windows and the view of Paris instead. Bright and sunlit and horribly wrong. He kept his breath slow and steady, kept the bile down, and tried to ignore the murder that was taking place right in front of him.

"An unanimous decision, then," Duval spoke. "Welcome to the executive board, Mr Gregorovich. I believe the promotion is overdue."

Alex looked back. Kroll was still. Alex spotted a flicker of eye movement and almost threw up there and then. Still alive. No one even looked twice.

Yassen settled in the single available chair with the usual, unnatural grace he possessed. It was the closest chair to Alex, too. They had probably planned it like that. Yassen didn't speak, not to thank them or anything of the sort. A waste of valuable time better spent on business. They all knew quite well what sort of opportunity and kind of power they had given Yassen. There was no need to point it out.

Duval focused on Alex. His eyes were dark and cold, like someone had removed all emotion from them and not bothered to replace it with something else. He snapped his fingers once, sharply, in an unspoken summon. Like Alex was a dog. Alex knew better than to let on how much it annoyed him.

Instead he approached Duval at the table, his footsteps every bit as silent as Yassen's. He stopped at a respectful distance. "Sir."

He wasn't sure he was supposed to speak but it seemed like the safer option to be polite.

"Your loyalties, boy," Duval said. "SCORPIA or Gregorovich?"

For an instant, the first part of the sentence sent Alex's pulse and adrenaline levels through the roof. They only lowered slightly at the rest of the question. He wasn't about to be stupid and say the two options were one and the same, because the board quite obviously didn't feel so. And why should they? Alex wouldn't be surprised if someone like Nile would gladly have targeted someone on the board on Chase or Rothman's command.

He wasn't sure what the right answer was. SCORPIA would be a lie. Yassen might not be the smart answer to give. But then, they had to expect it. Everyone had harped on about Alex's obedience and the excellent work Yassen had done with him.

The truth, then. Alex doubted they would take kindly to a lie and it wasn't like they didn't already know it. It was a test, like most things. "Mr Gregorovich, sir."

Polite and respectful, like he would have to be now.

Duval's expression was unreadable, but Yu looked mildly satisfied and Chase nodded slowly.

"No surprise," the Australian said. "Can't blame a dog for its training. He's young for a second in command, but …"

Chase trailed off. Dr Three took over.

"Orion was always a fast learner. He was trained for this job. He remained obedient even during resistance to interrogation. I approve," he said. The last two words sounded like a verdict.

"Agreed," Chase spoke.

Yu nodded, a slight, cautious motion. "He can still be used for missions despite his position. His age will be an asset for a while yet. The position will prove educational. I approve."

Kurst's attention lingered on Alex, dark and malignant. Then he slowly nodded. "Approved."

From Kurst, talking about Alex, that was almost enthusiastic. Alex had realised by the second approving verdict that his survival was just as much on the line as Yassen's had been. He needed their unanimous approval. He doubted they would allow for anything else with Hunter's son.

No one asked if he knew what he was getting into. Either he knew or it wasn't the board's problem. If not, he would learn or suffer the consequences.

"He's already trained to Mr Gregorovich's impressive standards. I approve," Mikato said.

"Obedient as well," Duval noted. "A little young, but he will learn. The motion passes, then."

Just like that, Alex's future was decided again. Like Yassen had said, he'd had his last chance to get out of it the evening before. He was in it for good now.

"Dismissed." Duval didn't even look at Alex, his attention on the rest of the board.

Alex didn't mind in the least. He wanted to get away. From the board and Kroll's body and the oppressive silence. He slipped outside of the room, silent enough not to break the tomb-like stillness of the room. Closed the door behind him. And for a long while he just stood there and breathed slowly as he watched Paris pass by beyond the bulletproof glass.

* * *

A/N 2: Since there have been a number of other boats in the fic already, I couldn't resist and had to use _Le Débiteur_ , SCORPIA's floating Paris office that we see in _Scorpia Rising._ Once that was decided, the Sacré-Cœur scene pretty much wrote itself.

A/N 3: In _Scorpia Rising,_ Kurst killed Levi Kroll. Earlier, in _Snakehead,_ he mused that maybe the man would need to be removed one day. Also in _Snakehead,_ Yu suspected Kroll was trying to take over the operation, since Kroll had been attempting to take control of SCORPIA since Grendel's death. The set-up in _Scorpia Rising_ never happened here, so Kroll survived, but it occurred to me that maybe Kurst and Yu had overlapping interests. Take out a potential threat and put another board member into place that hasn't shown the same sort of inconvenient ambitions.

Next: There are some helpful lessons Alex could have done without.


	40. Higher Education, part I

Alex and Yassen returned to the hotel that evening. The world felt weirdly normal to Alex. It shouldn't, not when Yassen had just been promoted to the board and Alex had been approved as his second in command. It should have felt different, somehow. The world should have changed. Alex had spent two full hours waiting outside of that board room, watching Paris pass by, but he felt the same as he always had.

The boat had returned to its original spot right as the meeting broke up. None of the board had spoken as they left the boat and vanished in different directions by different means of transportation.

Alex and Yassen had walked back through Paris, just two more tourists. They had stopped on the way for an early dinner, though neither of them had spoken of anything sensitive.

The first sign that something had changed was when Alex got to check that the room hadn't been tampered with in their absence. Normally Yassen did the bulk of it, or they split the task. This time, Yassen glanced at him instead.

"The room is your responsibility now."

Because Yassen was a member of the board now and it was beneath him, or because he wanted to make sure Alex could do it flawlessly. Alex suspected the latter. Yassen was not the type to ever consider caution and security issues beneath him.

Alex didn't respond out loud. Just nodded and set to work.

It took half an hour to get everything checked to Yassen's standards. Only then did either of them speak again.

"Tell me how the poison was delivered," Yassen said.

A test. Yassen already knew how, Alex didn't doubt that. He wanted to know if Alex had worked it out, too.

Yu had arrived after Kroll. The room had been secure. The chairs were too far apart to allow for unseen physical contact, and Yu had been sitting across from Kroll, anyway. Too far away to reach. Had he been working with one of the people next to Kroll, then? Mikato or Kurst? But that would have been noticeable, too. No one had eaten or drunk anything. Everyone had brought their own papers. Something in the chair, then? But Kroll had been the only victim and there were no designated seats but the one meant for the current chairman, which hadn't been Kroll. It could have been a different poison than what Yu claimed, something with an antidote – if that was the case, every chair could have had something on them and everyone else could have taken the antidote in advance, but that would have meant the entire rest of the board was in on it, and there were much easier ways to kill Kroll, then. Not to mention that it would take far more trust than the members would ever show each other.

Alex thought back on the meeting, pushed past the chilling fear and the deathly stillness, and tried to remember. The only thing he had made note of at the time was that Kroll had jerked once. Not much, but it had been there. Jerked and reached down slightly but hadn't done anything else.

Had Yu's hands been above the table? Looking back, Alex was pretty sure the answer was no.

"Some sort of poison dart?" he guessed. "Not a real dart, Kroll would have felt it sticking out when he reached down, but something shorter and smaller? Yu had a clear shot. He'd barely have needed to aim. Yu arrived after Kroll, so he could pick the seat with the best shot. He wore gloves, too, he always does, so he'd be safe from the poison himself."

Yassen nodded slightly. He looked pleased, in Yassen-terms.

"Those were the broad strokes, at least," he confirmed. "Yu may have had help. Kroll has made enemies. The board's business is not as secret as they would like it to be. Rumours leak. People gossip. Carefully, of course."

Of course. Or they probably didn't live to do it for very long.

"So that makes four assassinations on the board, and two of them were an inside job," Alex concluded. And those were only the successful ones. Kroll, after all, had apparently tried and failed to get rid of Yu.

"At least two," Yassen corrected. "The first two assassinations happened under circumstances that never became entirely clear. It could very well have been an inside job as well."

How charming. Alex's expression must have conveyed that quite clearly because Yassen continued.

"There will be more. There is no retirement from the board," he said. "Grendel was assassinated for the attempt. A retired member of the executive board is too much of a threat to SCORPIA. They know too much to be allowed to live. Kroll had become an inconvenience. Sooner or later, someone will try to retire or someone else will decide a fellow board member has grown too old and feeble to carry such responsibility."

Was that was Yassen wanted? Alex had thought he had wanted to retire. He had said as much during their week of downtime before Miami. SCORPIA's operatives could retire. The board couldn't. Yassen himself had said he would prefer retirement and the occasional job instead of a teaching position at Malagosto, which was what he had expected. A house in Saint Petersburg.

Maybe it was different, being offered a promotion like that. A lot of influence. A lot of money. No one to pull his strings anymore.

"No house in Saint Petersburg, then." It came out more as a statement than a question.

"I suppose I will need to settle somewhere," Yassen murmured. "Saint Petersburg is not a bad choice. A promotion to the executive board is not something to be turned down."

The last remark could be taken as an opportunity too good to turn down … or one that there was no other choice but to accept or face the consequences. Would they want someone reluctant on the board? But then, who really knew what went on in Yassen's mind? Alex certainly didn't. He doubted the board did, either.

Was this what Yassen wanted? Alex still didn't know. Anyone else, he would have been sure the answer was a yes. The power and money would be too much to refuse. With Yassen, who had never shown any ambitions like that, never cared for politics, never even had any particular emotions about his job as far as Alex could tell …

What did Yassen Gregorovich want? Did he have a home somewhere? A base? All Alex had seen was the Russian safe-house and the _Fer de Lance._ He could have a number of other properties out there that Alex didn't know about.

Yassen glanced at him. Alex got the impression he could read his mind. "That sort of concern is for a later time, however. The _Fer de Lance_ will do for now."

Large, fast, mobile. She didn't have the security of a land-based home but if she kept moving, maybe she wouldn't need to.

"Is she all right?" Alex asked as he remembered something else. "After ..."

He trailed off but Yassen got the point.

"She will need a thorough sweep to ensure she isn't compromised but beyond that she suffered only minor damage. It has already been taken care of. She is back in Alexandria at the moment. She has been checked over, but always check a second time yourself. Do not trust anyone to do that job if you don't trust them with your life."

Alex hadn't thought about her since they left Santa Catarina but part of him was pleased to hear she was in one piece. He had liked life on the boat. His cabin there wasn't home, but it was something that maybe counted for it these days. He would have been sad if anything had happened to her.

He wondered if the crew was still the same. Another one of those questions he didn't want to ask. He thought they had done a great job, but Yassen's standards were very different sometimes.

Instead he just nodded and filed away that bit of information. "Now what?"

"It will take weeks to get everything settled. You will leave tomorrow and spend a few days with Nile to learn the basics of what will be expected of you. Afterwards, I have arranged for you to spend two weeks with a security company in Iraq to gain experience with military hardware and combat zones and give your executive protection training a brush-up. It will be useful later."

Any outsider would have heard the implication that it would be useful as Yassen's second. Alex remembered Yassen's words in Russia instead. Even combat zones would be safer for him than MI6. There would be a number of security companies interested in someone of his skills, and that wasn't counting a career as a professional bodyguard. Alex had picked up a lot of skills that would be valuable to a number of people.

Yassen was adding to that. More importantly, Yassen was giving him options. Options beyond SCORPIA.

"Yes, sir." _Thank you,_ he didn't say, though he knew Yassen would understand.

"Your return should coincide with Crux being between assignments," Yassen continued. "You will spend two weeks with her continuing your education. Disguises," he added before Alex could ask, "not torture."

Alex would be busy for a month solid. He wasn't sure how he felt about being on his own for that long. Sure, he would be with Nile, and the security company, and then with Crux, but still. No one he could trust like Yassen. He supposed he would just have to deal with that. He would probably have to get used to it, too, if he was supposed to be Yassen's extended will. Sometimes he would be sent off alone.

At least he wouldn't be put through torture lessons. He didn't doubt Crux would be delighted to teach him that, too. She had seemed very disappointed in his lack of interest in that area.

He wondered how long Yassen had been planning it for. How long he had known about the board's plans for him. Yassen's vague explanations in Miami about why he had been given command of a large operation suddenly made more sense. He had known already then. Known or strongly suspected. Yassen couldn't have known for sure if the board would approve of his promotion – his and Alex's – but he had been sure enough to already arrange a month of additional training for Alex.

Not only had Yassen been that sure of the board, he had been that sure of Alex's choice, too. That sort of thing wasn't planned in one evening. Yassen had known for a long time and he had planned accordingly.

Had the executive board considered a promotion like that even before Alex had been given that choice by Yassen, back in London? Had Yassen suspected and planned for it even then? Or had Alex's suitability as Yassen's second been just a lucky coincidence? He could ask but he doubted he would get a useful answer.

Alex felt like a puppet again, with his strings pulled by forces beyond his grasp. Sometimes his entire life felt like that. First Ian, then MI6, now Yassen and SCORPIA … though the more he thought about it, the more he realised it was almost solely Yassen. Whatever SCORPIA might think, they'd had very little influence on Alex. Yassen had trained him, Yassen was his partner, Yassen knew his plans and had manipulated things to suit his own nebulous goals.

Alex just wished he knew what those goals were.

His emotions must have shown, because Yassen interrupted his gloomy thoughts.

"Get changed, Alex. Bring your knives. I promised you a proper workout."

Armed close combat. A little dangerous but Alex instantly felt adrenaline and anticipation kick in. It had been way too long since he'd had the chance to practice that with Yassen. He would get sounded trashed but he didn't even mind. He was enough of an adrenaline junkie to enjoy the thrill of close combat training with proper knives, razor sharp and with no room for mistakes.

Alex also knew it was a distraction, but right there and then, he didn't even mind.

* * *

Alex landed in Murtala Muhammed International Airport the following evening, still under the alias of Sacha Mathieu. What Nile was doing in Nigeria, Alex didn't know and he probably shouldn't ask.

The man in question met him on the other side of customs. He didn't look like the Nile Alex had come to know at Malagosto, of course. His looks were very distinctive, for better or for worse, and so he wore a disguise for the day. He looked like a business man in his late twenties with his head deliberately kept shaved and with flawless black skin. It wasn't just his head, either. Even his hands showed no sign of the distinct white marks that were normally visible.

But it was Nile nonetheless, a quick series of slight hand signals had confirmed it.

"Sacha!" he greeted. "Welcome to Lagos."

Not for the first time, Alex wondered about Nile's different disguises. Like Singapore, Lagos was hot and humid, and the airport was even worse. A latex mask and gloves would be miserable. Make-up … Alex doubted that would be durable enough, especially in that sort of climate. Maybe Nile was used to that kind of disguises. Maybe he had learned to live with it. Alex was just glad that he had spent enough time in heat and humidity to be used to it by now. It would still take a while for his body to remember that, but he would adapt again fast.

The world beyond the airport was crowded and noisy. There were lots of cars, even more people, and constant honking. The smells were foreign and familiar at the same time. A whole new country on a whole new continent, but somehow traffic and exhaust fumes had an echo of the same all over the world.

Alex wasn't sure what he had expected, but this wasn't it. It had to have shown, because Nile smiled at him.

"You know, there are well past ten million people in Lagos alone," Nile said. "Nigeria is one of the emerging powers of the world. Business has been quite profitable already. We have several new investments here."

Alex knew, he had looked it up, but it was still different to see the place in person. Staring at the chaos of cars and sound, Alex believed it. Right there and then, it felt like at least half of those ten million people had found something to do in front of the airport. It was dark and well into the evening, but there were still a ton of people out doing stuff.

Nile had a car parked nearby and he joined the traffic chaos with the ease and confidence of someone used to it.

For the first time Alex wondered where Nile was actually from. It was well known that Alex was British. Nile had an accent, too, but it was faint and impossible to pinpoint. Alex had tried.

The ride gave him a chance to take a look at the city. He wouldn't be there for long, but he was still curious. It was an entirely new place, a world away from his months in the United Arab Emirates and his brief glimpses of Egypt. He had spent a while waiting at the airport and taken the time to do a bit of research, and he wasn't surprised to find that SCORPIA had business there.

A large economy combined with a pretty poor human rights record was just the sort of place where SCORPIA thrived. Always expanding, always looking for new ways to make money. It was no surprise that the board was looking for new blood. They would need it to keep control of everything.

His first impression of what he could see in the darkness was of sheer size. Lagos didn't have the gleaming buildings and expensive feel of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, but it was also a lot poorer, so Alex wasn't surprised.

Nile's car looked fairly average from the outside, but it had air conditioning and Alex would bet good money that it was armoured to some degree, too. The door had felt heavier than it should when Alex closed it. Something to keep in mind himself for the future.

He wasn't just Orion now, MI6's Alex Rider turned SCORPIA's. He was Yassen Gregorovich's second in command. That alone made him a high value target, even if just being Alex Rider hadn't already done that.

The place they eventually arrived at, some traffic and two bridges later, seemed a lot more expensive than anything else Alex had seen so far. Nile's home in Lagos turned out to be a high-end apartment. Not quite up to the casual wealth of their cover in Singapore, but definitely beyond the means of most people in the city.

Alex's room was down a short hallway. The apartment was air conditioned, too, and the bed was pristine and perfectly made. Alex strongly suspected Nile had a maid hired as well.

Neither had said a word during the drive. Only once inside the apartment did Nile speak.

"We will start tomorrow," he said. "I think you need the rest. It's been a long few days, hasn't it?"

Alex thought back to Paris, to the days leading up to it, to the meeting with the board and Kroll's murder and the horrible sense of helplessness as the board decided his fate, and he swallowed.

"A bit," he agreed.

"It's always a little overwhelming the first time you meet the full board. I'm told it gets easier." Nile sounded almost sympathetic. "Go rest, Alex. We will talk tomorrow."

Food could wait. Close to seeing double from sheer exhaustion from the past few days, Alex certainly wasn't about to argue with the chance for some sleep.

* * *

The disguise was gone the following morning. Nile was back to his usual, familiar self. He had been cautious at the airport. It was obvious that he felt secure enough now that he didn't bother with it.

They trained together that morning after a very early breakfast. There was a gym nearby, and Alex spent two hours working out and doing his daily run on a treadmill. It felt a little odd to have Nile there instead of Yassen. Odd, but still familiar. Nile had been his mentor. Alex knew the man was dangerous but he was still a familiar presence in a very foreign place.

Back in the apartment, they spent another hour on close combat training.

"You're used to training with Mr Gregorovich. He's exceptionally skilled but sometimes it's educational with a different training partner," Nile explained. Even with another operative, it wasn't 'Yassen' or 'Cossack' anymore, Alex noticed. Not after Yassen's promotion. "We were trained in the same style but still we fight very differently."

Alex lost resoundingly but he had expected that. He still managed a bit better every time, and he had held his own against Nile for longer than he had expected. Nile looked pretty satisfied, too.

Nile finished up with a brief display of his own normal training with his swords. Alex recognised them from Malagosto. A matched pair of half-sized samurai swords; longer than a knife but shorter than a proper sword. Nile wielded them as an extension of himself. Alex knew what the weapons could do, how lethal they were, but even then he couldn't help but admire the skill behind.

Nile was a master. It was no wonder that he was held up as an example at Malagosto, the same way Yassen was.

Alex was sent off for a shower. When he returned to the living room, Nile had set up bottled water and fresh fruit by the couch. Alex settled down across from him and grabbed a slice of pineapple. It tasted perfectly fresh and ripe. The odds were good it had been picked the day before.

"I don't think anyone will be surprised that Mr Gregorovich chose you as his second." Nile sounded fond. Pleased, even, with Alex's promotion. "He trained you himself to his standards, better than even Malagosto could. You will be an excellent second in command to him."

"I'm fifteen," Alex felt the need to point out. Sure, Yassen wanted him for the position and the board had approved, but everyone still seemed to forget that his age wasn't just a random number. He should still be in school. He should be in Brookland with his friends, with Tom, complaining about homework and staying out too long and getting to school late and generally making Jack wonder what to do about him.

He shouldn't be on an entirely different continent, the third within five days, to learn how to be a good personal assistant, assassin, whatever was required to a member of the executive board of a worldwide terrorist organisation.

"SCORPIA judges on skills," Nile said, every bit the patient mentor Alex remembered from Malagosto. "You are certainly young for such a position but that's merely proof of your skills. Mr Gregorovich and the board both judged you competent enough for it. That is high praise."

High praise and an excellent opportunity to find a way to eventually take SCORPIA down. It was still an unnerving amount of responsibility they had just put in the hands of a teenager.

"Does everyone on the board have a second in command?" Yu hadn't to the best of Yassen's knowledge, but Alex was curious about the rest.

"Most do. Major Yu is the exception now," Nile replied. "He has several lieutenants instead. Mr Kroll didn't have one, either. There was no one he trusted enough. A second must be absolutely loyal. Anything else is unthinkable."

There wouldn't be anyone tempted to get even for Kroll, then. Though knowing the board, Yu would probably have had Kroll's second killed as well in that case, just to be sure.

Alex felt like an invisible net had closed in on him. He'd had room for mistakes before. Not much, but some. He didn't anymore. Not with the sort of expectations people now had of him.

Not for the first time, he suspected he had made a mistake when he had agreed. What choice did he have, though? This was what he wanted. A chance to get intel he might never see otherwise. A chance to take SCORPIA down. A chance to stop them for good.

"So what am I supposed to do now?"

"Whatever Mr Gregorovich requires. I oversee some of our recent investments here on behalf of Mr Chase. They are valuable enough to warrant the attention of the board but not so attention-demanding as to warrant their direct oversight. In such cases, they will often send someone like you and me. Someone trusted and competent enough to carry out their orders to the letter."

"You're here permanently?" That seemed like a waste of someone like Nile.

"Only until those investments are stable enough to hand over to someone else." Nile corrected. "A few months in this case. I am always needed elsewhere. You will be, too. I have business to see to today. You will come with me."

Just the way Alex wanted to spend the day. It was a generous offer, though, and Yassen probably had to pull quite a few strings to make it happen, so Alex kept back his sigh.

"Thank you," he said instead. "I appreciate it."

He must have sounded sincere enough, because Nile smiled.

"A second in command is a combined personal assistant, bodyguard, and problem solver," he continued. "As an assassin, you are given your assignments, usually even with the requested weapon. Now you will need to rely on your own skills. If you are told someone has become a problem and to handle it, what do you do? Should it look like an accident or must you send a signal? Sometimes even a supposedly-accidental death would draw far too much attention. Then you must use bribes, or threats, or blackmail. If you are not given further orders, this choice is yours, based on your judgement alone. A second should be good enough that no further instructions should be needed. The executive board has more important priorities."

A good, proper SCORPIA pet, then. Just as Alex had suspected. Someone to do the dirty work that the board was too busy to handle. Someone who could be blamed if something went wrong, too, he was sure. Yassen claimed the money and influence made up for it. Given SCORPIA's usual type of people, it probably did. What was a little risk compared to that kind of pay-off?

He wondered how many of SCORPIA's own people that would consider him a potential target now, too. Someone to get rid of to leave room for promotions. Maybe Yassen's reputation would prevent it, maybe it wouldn't. Nile could easily hold his own. Alex wasn't quite at that level yet, and with the number of intelligence agencies that dearly wanted to get their hands on him, there was no guarantee he would have time to get that good, either.

"So how fast is this going to become common knowledge?" Alex asked, morbidly curious. "Y- Mr Gregorovich's promotion and all?"

Nile smiled. "In some cases, it never does. Major Yu's place on the executive board was a secret for a long time, even to most of SCORPIA. It was only a few years ago that the various agencies started to suspect it."

And only now, with Ash's treason, had it been confirmed. Nile didn't have to say that out loud.

"In this case," Nile continued, "Mr Gregorovich has a towering reputation. His promotion to the board will reflect well on the organisation. The upper echelons will have been notified already. Gossip and necessity will see to the rest. A matter of weeks, perhaps, before word reaches the intelligence community. His second in command would normally matter very little, it would be a mere footnote at the most, but you have annoyed a number of people with your switch in allegiance and your age makes you stand out. I expect that it will take only slightly longer for your own position to become known outside of SCORPIA."

That sounded just great. A vindictive little part of Alex really wanted to be a fly on the wall when someone told Blunt. A much larger part preferred to keep at least a continent and maybe two between himself and MI6.

"Now," Nile said, "finish your fruit, Alex. We have business to see to."

* * *

Nile's business turned out to be at a nice house in what was clearly a higher-income area. There was security, but Nile had it disabled in less than a minute and set up a small camera of his own instead.

Inside was a family home. Neat and clean, with toys packed away in colourful boxes, children's drawings on the walls, and a number of photos of a pair of smiling parents and three children.

The house itself was silent. Alex was almost scared of asking. He did, anyway.

"The family …"

"Mr Adeyemi's wife and children are slightly detained at the moment," Nile said. "They are quite unharmed. Mr Adeyemi himself should be home shortly. It has been made quite clear what the consequences will be otherwise."

Adeyemi. A name for their target, then. Alex didn't know what they were doing there, but there was a name, at least, and it sounded like someone Nile had worked with before. A contact of some sort, maybe.

Alex felt horribly awkward and out of place. He was careful not to leave any evidence and he tried not to look at the toys and the other signs that this was the home of someone human, with a family and a life and dreams. The man's family was safe for now. There was no guarantee it would remain that way.

Nile didn't seem bothered but kept an eye on his phone and the live feed from the camera outside.

It was half an hour later when Nile put the phone aside and moved to the door, Alex following him. The door unlocked long seconds later.

Adeyemi, whoever he was, clearly recognised Nile. The man froze, fear plain in his features, and then he noticed the gun aimed at him.

"Inside, if you please," Nile said, soft and pleasant. "Close the door behind you."

Adeyemi followed instructions, his eyes never leaving the weapon. Nile nodded and put the gun away. The man had fractions of a second to look relieved before Nile moved again, slamming the man against the wall with an iron grip around his throat.

"If you struggle, I will have to bring the gun out again," Nile chided. "I would prefer not to leave blood around to traumatise your children. Do you understand?"

Adeyemi managed a slight, jerky nod. Nile smiled.

"Excellent," he said. "Alex, this is Mr Adeyemi. He has a high position with the police here. SCORPIA employs him to ensure things run smoothly. That we won't have any unfortunate surprises. Unfortunately, he has failed to deliver what he promised us. One of our shipments was intercepted despite his assurances that everything would be in order."

Adeyemi managed a rattling, wheezing sound. Nile's iron grip on the man's throat tightened and he frowned slightly at his captive. "Hush. This is an important lesson. Alex needs to know these things. Don't interrupt. You don't want to add 'rude' to your list of shortfalls."

Point made, he turned his attention back to Alex. Judging by Adeyemi's bulging eyes, Alex doubted he could breathe much at all now.

"Now, this is the second time that Mr Adeyemi here has failed to deliver what he promised. I made the precarious situation of his family clear the first time. This is his second failure. That implies either incompetence or a deliberate choice to go against orders. Which one do you believe it to be?"

Adeyemi grasped weakly at Nile's hands but barely had the strength to even reach that far. Nile's grip eased slightly. Just enough to not quite kill him yet. Yet. The man had failed SCORPIA twice. He was dead no matter what and Alex knew it.

He forced himself to look away and ignore the taste of bile in his mouth. The nausea lingered just below the surface. He tried to think it through, like Yassen had taught him.

"You threatened his family last time. It was something that would work as a threat because he cares about them, or you wouldn't have done it. If he cares about them, he wouldn't deliberately disobey. SCORPIA doesn't have a reputation for tolerating failure. Incompetence, then," Alex delivered his verdict.

Nile nodded. He looked pleased. "I agree. Both options are unforgivable, of course. The difference is that deliberate disobedience would see his family targeted. Incompetence will only target him."

Nile moved. There was no warning. One moment he held Adeyemi by the throat, the next Alex heard the sickening crunch of bone as Nile snapped his neck.

The body fell to the ground. Alex felt the bile rise and tried to breathe through the nausea and the overwhelming urge to throw up.

"You will want to send a message sometimes," Nile continued like he hadn't just snapped a man's neck. "Any sign of weakness and people will try to take advantage of you, and of SCORPIA and Mr Gregorovich as well. That sort of thing won't do."

Alex nodded, like he was expected to. "His family …"

"They will be released. We are not unreasonable."

Alex remembered the Sullivans in Singapore and kept his mouth shut. Nile had a very different definition of 'not unreasonable' than most other people. Odds were good that Adeyemi's wife would come straight home and find the body. He hoped their kids wouldn't see it.

"Come along, Alex," Nile said. "We have things to do."

They checked the house for any evidence they might have left. Nile reset the security system. Just like that, the house looked like any other.

Back in the car, Nile peeled off a thin layer of latex on his hands. Fake fingerprints. Adeyemi's murder would never be solved. Alex watched the world outside in silence as they drove off, one item on Nile's long to-do list handled.

Alex Rider spent three days shadowing Nile in Lagos. It was educational, sure. It was also the sort of education Alex really could have done without.

* * *

LookingforAlaska: Alex won't be with Yassen for future board meetings. No one but the board members themselves are generally present. As for more future new members ... that depends on how the rest of the story ends up. I'm not entirely sure yet.

Next: Well, he sneaks around the world from Lagos to Las Vegas … and he'll blame SCORPIA for that.


	41. Higher Education, part II

A/N: As always, thank you for reading, and for your reviews! :)

SammyP: Yassen considers it a sign of poor planning if Alex needs to use those skills too often - he should have killed his target and any security if necessary long before it got that close to him, much less got enough warning to fight back. Though it might very likely show up down the line, since sometimes things go wrong.

* * *

Five days after his promotion, Alex Rider landed in Baghdad International Airport. It looked a little brown and dusty from above, and Alex couldn't help but think of the many news reports he had seen. The temperature was inching up towards thirty degrees Celsius, but the air was dry and that made it a pleasant change from Lagos, even with the higher temperature. It climate reminded him a little of Riyadh, just less hot.

He was greeted by a heavily armoured Mercedes from Excelsi Security. The company was one of SCORPIA's, even if there was no evidence to tie the two together. The car looked normal. A little worn, but normal. Alex had enough experience to spot the signs of heavy armour without needing to feel the weight of the door.

Alex's contact was a Kiwi. He would have wondered what a New Zealander was doing in Baghdad, but probably the same as everyone else: making money. Besides, it wasn't like Alex had any room to judge.

"Huh," the man said. "Little young, aren't you?"

The stress from three days on his absolute best behaviour with Nile answered before Alex's common sense could. "My bosses like that. The younger, the better. More time to train them." His voice was bone-dry and he deliberately avoided mentioning SCORPIA by name.

The man barked a laugh. "Haven't met too many people who'll joke about that crew, much less imply they're a bunch of kiddy fiddlers. Thomas," he said and held out his hand. "Just Thomas."

Maybe his given name, maybe his surname. Alex didn't think it really mattered. Yassen had taught him to see names as a flexible thing.

"Alex." His papers still said Sacha, but he wasn't familiar enough with the name that he could tell for sure he would be able to respond to it in an emergency. 'Alex' was safer.

"We were told you were a teenager. Didn't exactly expect that. Fifteen, sixteen?" Thomas guessed.

"Fifteen," Alex replied. "I turn sixteen in February."

They got into the car. The driver nodded to Alex in greeting. Thomas handed him a heavy ballistic vest. "Might as well get used to it, and with that on, I think you can pass for old enough to legally work for us. Maybe. You'll get dusty fast enough, that'll help."

It wouldn't be comfortable in the heat, but the car had perfectly functional air conditioning and Alex had tried far worse. Santa Catarina came to mind. He slipped on the vest and Thomas nodded approvingly.

"Used to it," he commented.

"Usually the lighter ones," Alex admitted. "But I guess this comes with the territory."

Another barked laugh. "Ain't that the truth."

Two guns and an assault rifle followed to complete the getup. Alex checked them under Thomas' watchful eye and earned another approving nod. The car pulled out. Thomas started talking and just like that, Alex's lessons began. "Our company's based in the Green Zone. That means you get to see Route Irish first-hand. Now, this beauty's got B6 armour, enough to stop high powered rifles. It's armoured on all six sides, but that means nothing if someone decides to blow us up. In case we're attacked -"

And so began the flood of information. Alex suspected it would be a long two weeks in Baghdad.

* * *

The company base was surprisingly nice; a decent sized building that had been converted to suit their needs.

Nothing about it looked off. Nothing about it screamed 'SCORPIA subsidiary'. There were several nice offices, a gym, and a number of private rooms. Not luxury accommodations but they served their purpose. There was air conditioning. Small fridges in the rooms. Individual bathrooms. A shared kitchen. The employees were welcome to live elsewhere, but Excelsi supplied a room if they wanted it at what was apparently a very reasonable price.

There was a stack of clothes on Alex's quite comfortable-looking bed – black combat trousers and plain t-shirts in more shades of brown and green than Alex wanted to know existed – as well as several guns and assault rifles on the table next to it, along with an impressive amount of ammunition. There were also a number of books and what looked like manuals for a range of different sorts of artillery. Alex had the horrible suspicion that he was expected to read and memorise all of it.

Whatever else Excelsi might be, they seemed to run an efficient company.

"We want effective, loyal employees. The quality of the contractors here range from shit to special forces. You get some pretty crappy adrenaline junkies, no skill but basic training and the ability to hold a gun and not shoot themselves, and you get the proper good ones," Thomas explained. "We've got pretty high standards and have a solid reputation. We charge accordingly, too, and pay the guys what they're worth. Sure, we lose people now and then, but everyone does, and we lose fewer than most."

Made sense. It reminded Alex a little of Malagosto, too. Just a little. A certain number of failed students was accepted as part of the training – expected, even – but SCORPIA did take good care of their top operatives. Alex had never been in a situation where he got to see how they treated the less valuable ones.

"We've been told to push you hard and teach you as much as we can. Figured you might as well know. Keep working hard and there's always going to be more. Since you're Mr Gregorovich's second, I can't imagine that'll come as a surprise."

It was weird to hear Thomas being respectful, the words sounded wrong already, but nobody wanted to insult the executive board on accident, and Alex was Yassen's second in command. Any disrespect could easily find its way to the man's ears.

Alex's smile was wry. "Not really, no."

Hard work. It felt familiar and almost sort of nice. Sure, it was an advantage to Yassen that he learned as much as possible, but part of it was for Alex's sake, too.

"We got the basics about you," Thomas continued. "Malagosto graduate, seven months of field experience, former MI6, a week and a half of SAS training. If we end up covering anything you know, tell us. Lots of other stuff to cover."

Like anyone else in SCORPIA that Alex had met, Thomas didn't seem to care Alex was fifteen. If Yassen Gregorovich considered Alex Rider an adult, he would be treated like one.

"Food," Thomas said, "you've got the choice of local stuff or fixing some yourself. There are some nice places nearby. Gets boring and pretty expensive in the long run, so most make their own. Some stick together and eat as a group. Sometimes you'll have long shifts and can't be bothered, so stock up on stuff for your fridge. Things that don't have instructions more complicated than 'shove it in the microwave'. And stay hydrated, but since you've spent a good while in the Middle East, I'm sure you know how it goes."

Alex nodded. Thomas looked satisfied.

"Good. You've got half an hour to get settled. We've got a schedule to keep."

Yes, Alex decided. Just like Malagosto. As he got changed into clean clothes and packed away the rest, he couldn't help the slight feeling of nostalgia. Despite it all, he had genuinely missed it.

* * *

Alex's Malagosto comparison turned out to be not entirely on the spot but close enough. He went with Thomas on jobs and got pushed relentlessly when he wasn't. He spent two days at a base well away from Baghdad and got put through a crash course in the sort of things Gordon Ross didn't cover or kept on a purely theoretical level. Shoulder-launched weapons, Carl Gustavs, M40s – if it was on the base, Alex got one put in front of him and got to sit through a rapid-fire interrogation of his knowledge of the weapon and its usage before he was even allowed to touch it. It had made him exceptionally grateful he had read through the various books and manuals at the first chance he got, or he didn't doubt his experience at the base would have been a lot less pleasant.

When it all came down to it, Alex did enjoy it. It was SCORPIA and some pretty heavy weaponry, but he was still a fifteen-year-old boy and his reward for doing his 'homework' was apparently to get to fire every single large weapon on base, as long as he could pass that interrogation-quiz to his instructors' satisfaction.

It was fantastic incentive. Yassen had probably known that.

So maybe it was still a dangerous place to be, so maybe he had to wear a ballistic vest, but he didn't really care. At least it wasn't humid, which was really an improvement from Santa Catarina. Alex adapted, and Excelsi adapted to him in turn.

He went along on the jobs he could, those clients who didn't care at all that one of their bodyguards and security detail was a suspiciously young teenager. Those who might have asked uncomfortable questions … well, Alex suspected those were the times he was sent elsewhere for additional training. The two days he had spent leaning heavy artillery, at least, had been the same two days Thomas' team had been responsible for a small group of journalists. Definitely not the sort of clients they wanted Alex Rider around.

Most of the clients Alex saw were business men and government officials, though. People who didn't blink at his presence. They only cared that he was good enough to do the job, and Excelsi had guaranteed that.

Alex thought he did a pretty decent job but he had no way to tell. Thomas didn't comment and neither did anyone else. Nobody had been killed on Alex's watch, he had kept calm the one time it looked like they were about to drive into an ambush, and he had kept up with every single lesson they put him through. If that wasn't good enough, he didn't know what was.

"Not bad," Thomas finally said the evening of Alex's last day there. "I'd prefer to keep you for another month or two and get you a better grounding, but two weeks was all we got. Your ticket for tomorrow is for Las Vegas. I'd call you a lucky bastard, but you're too young to gamble and I'm told we're handing you over to another operative instead."

It wasn't a question or a hint for more information. Just a statement of fact. Alex shrugged.

"I'm getting a brush-up on a bit of everything. My age won't be an asset for that much longer. SCORPIA does a lot of business in dangerous places, and I'll be Mr Gregorovich's extended reach for some of those operations. He wanted to make sure I was competent enough for it."

It was perfectly true. The fact that Yassen's other motivation was to let Alex get an idea of alternatives to SCORPIA wasn't something that would ever be spoken out loud, not even between just the two of them. Yassen's order to have his new second trained right for the job was all the explanation anyone needed. Malagosto trained assassins. A second in command needed to be more than just that.

Thomas nodded. "You'll need more experience, but you've got a decent foundation to build on. If you get the time, get in touch again and I'll see if we can't find a few more weeks for you."

"Thank you," Alex said and meant it.

Sure, they probably got paid generously for those two weeks he had been there, but Alex still appreciated the offer. None of them had much patience for politics and Thomas wouldn't have offered if he hadn't meant it. No amount of money would have been enough to put up with a complete failure for another visit.

Thomas seemed to understand where his thoughts were going, too.

"Good," he said. "Now go pack, kid. You've got a plane to catch."

* * *

Alex landed in Las Vegas well into the evening almost a full twenty-four hours after he left Baghdad. He was Aleksandr Grigoryev again, an identity he hadn't used since he first travelled to Malagosto as Yassen's son. Sacha Mathieu had travelled too much, too frequently, and would draw attention, though Aleksandra Kurbatova, the identity he had used to get from Singapore to Miami, was still an option.

Aleksandr had travelled in the Middle East as well, though he had spent much longer in the same place and his travel pattern wasn't anywhere near as suspicious as Sacha's. He had a much better reason for it, too. Aleksandr's father was an international aid worker, a doctor, and brought his teenage son along when he could. He was supposedly in Kenya, helping with the lingering effects of Desmond McCain's plague and had left his son with a nanny and a tutor in Dubai.

Alex was still a little stuck on _Yassen Gregorovich_ having a cover identity like that. He wondered if the man could actually pass for a doctor. He almost had to, to run that sort of risk, and Dr Three _was_ actually a doctor. Yassen could have learned.

If anyone cared to look into it, they would find that Aleksandr's father worked for a smaller humanitarian aid organisation, but a perfectly legitimate one. SCORPIA simply knew a few people willing to be a little flexible with their records.

Mostly homeschooled, Aleksandr was on a rare visit to see his Canadian mother outside of normal school holidays. She was as busy as his father but had arranged for two weeks of vacation together. If asked, Aleksandr would be happy to share his theory that this was mainly because his father wanted him out of the way for a while.

Like Ian and Yassen and SCORPIA had taught him, Alex became his cover. He spoke English with a faint Russian accent, enough Arabic for someone who had spent years in the area, and excellent French because of his mother. He answered the usual questions from immigration with ease, didn't blink when they scanned his fingerprints – fake, from a thin cover of latex on his hands – and chatted happily with an Egyptian family in his passable Arabic, because Aleksandr had learned to make friends fast or be very lonely in a new, foreign place.

He doubted he would ever get over that instinctive surge of fear when they checked his passport, but at least he got better at ignoring it.

Crux met him on the other side of customs. She looked very different from last time he had seen her, but he didn't doubt it was her. She had the echo of Alex's own features, enough to leave little doubt that this was Aleksandr's mother. Late thirties, in classy, expensive clothes, and a large pair of bright red and probably hideously expensive sunglasses resting in her hair. He had been almost sure it was her, and the sunglasses confirmed it.

Like with Nile, a swift series of slight hand signs proved their identities, and Alex found himself genuinely smiling.

Sure, Crux liked to torture people. Maybe she had some disturbing hobbies. Compared to his three days shadowing Nile, suddenly that didn't seem so bad after all.

He let teenage awkwardness be teenage awkwardness and hugged her, and felt a small curl of warmth when she hugged back. It was probably an act, but physical contact wasn't exactly something he had a lot of these days.

Crux took a step back and looked him over. "Oh, Sasha, you've grown," she said, every bit the busy mother – a little startled and a little regretful that her son had changed to much since she had last seen him. "You're almost an adult. So much like your father."

She meant Hunter, Alex knew, not Yassen's cover, and she was sincere. Even Alex could see the resemblance.

With Crux's taste in clothes – or rather, her cover's taste in clothes – Alex sort of expected an expensive car and wasn't really surprised when she led him to a black Porsche Cayenne rental. Alex's sole carry-on would have looked very lonely in the boot if it wasn't for Crux's three massive suitcases.

"So where are we going?" he asked as she pulled out of the parking lot.

"First you're getting a bath to get rid of the last of the Baghdad dust," Crux said. "I've booked us at Four Seasons. You're too young to gamble but you can certainly enjoy the rest of this place. I've bought you a new set of clothes but you'll want more. And then we leave the day after tomorrow on a two-week road trip."

Alex nodded. That didn't quite answer the question but a proper bath and clean clothes sounded fantastic. He could deal with the rest later.

It was Alex's first time in Las Vegas and he spent the drive taking in everything, from the desert to the neon lights and the massive casinos. He recognised most of it from films and TV but it was weird to see it in real life. It was a normal weekday and close to midnight, but the Strip was still full of life.

Crux had picked an expensive hotel, Alex could tell that immediately, but she moved through the place like she owned it. Check-in was easily handled and their suitcases immediately vanished to reappear in their room.

"Come along, Aleks," she said. "You desperately need a bath. I don't know how your father handles that sort of place but I'm certainly not letting you catch your death because he insists a wash-cloth will double for a bath. He'll get tuberculosis one of these days, mark my words."

"Yes, mum." Alex's response was more a sigh than anything but he followed along obediently.

The room was all understated elegance and somewhat overwhelming to someone who just came from two weeks in Baghdad. Crux tipped the man that brought their suitcases and closed the door behind him.

The instant she did, she set to unpacking and brought out a few familiar instruments. Check the room, ensure it was secure. At least that was something Alex knew how to handle.

Between the two of them, it only took half an hour, and Crux shooed him off to the bathroom immediately afterwards. It was well past midnight by then, but Alex didn't care. A bath sounded like heaven right then.

An hour later, Alex reappeared and felt like a whole new person. He had spent half an hour in the marble tub getting rid of every last bit of dirt and grime and dust. He had shaved, and brushed his teeth, and tried out every single weird bottle of soap and shampoo and conditioner. The clothes Crux had picked for him fit quite well; a very unisex pair of jeans and a casual shirt. The brands were a little upper class for him but it suited the cover she used.

Crux crossed the room to him. She held his chin lightly in her hand and turned his head from side to side, taking in the changes. Alex had grown half an inch since he had last seen her, but nothing near the growth spurt he'd had at thirteen and fourteen. It had slowed down a lot. At the rate he had been growing, he would have gone past six feet well before his sixteenth birthday. He had wondered about that, but Dr Javadi had shown him a growth chart during his last check-up before he had graduated and his current height matched what he remembered from that. Six feet even by the age of eighteen was still her estimate, maybe six foot one.

"You'll grow up quite handsome," she said. "Perhaps it would be beneficial to find an instructor to teach you proper seduction when you get a little older. Most of Malagosto's students aren't the types for it or already know enough to get by. With your looks, it would be a shame not to use them."

Alex wasn't sure what sort of instructor Crux had in mind, but the mental images were plenty vivid and he felt himself blush. For all of the blood on his hands, teenage awkwardness still reared its head sometimes and made him feel like the fifteen-year-old he was.

She smiled. It looked a little fond. Probably at his awkwardness. "When you get older," she repeated. "You're still very young."

Right. Older. Alex still felt the flush of heat in his face.

"You learned the foundation of disguises at Malagosto," she continued, "and a bit more when we were in Singapore. These two weeks, I want to see just how much better you can get."

She let go of him again. "You've gained bulk, too. If you go for training that focuses on flexibility and agility instead, you will be able to pass for Cheshire for far longer. I'll show you some exercises."

"I have my dad's build."

Crux made a non-committal sound. "We will never know how much was genetics and how much was the sort of training he favoured. Hunter was a soldier. You are an assassin."

"And you'll leave it to me to suggest a change in my training to Y- Mr Gregorovich, of course." Alex's voice was bone dry.

"Of course," Crux said, quite reasonably. "You don't survive a decade as one of SCORPIA's operatives without a bit of common sense."

Alex couldn't help but laugh.

Crux smiled. "Congratulations on your promotion, by the way. You have done exceptionally well. I don't think anyone can really be surprised at the choice."

A part of Alex really appreciated it had taken her until now to mention it. He suspected a number of people in the future would mention it as the very first thing out of their mouth. "Well, _I_ was a little surprised," he admitted. "I'm fifteen."

"SCORPIA values skills, not age," she said, echoing Nile. "And you are exceptionally skilled, never doubt that. Now, get to bed. We still have all of tomorrow here, but we have a lot of things to handle as well."

Sure, Alex's internal clock was pretty sure it was around noon and not two at night but that didn't matter. After twenty-four hours of travelling, Alex was dead on his feet.

He was asleep the moment his head hit the pillow and he slept like a rock until Crux woke him up again eight hours later. He didn't dream, didn't even stir, and for the first time in weeks he actually felt mostly rested. He had never slept quite right in Baghdad. He had been exhausted but he was always waiting for stuff to go to hell, even in the Green Zone. Even knowing they were pretty safe there.

Alex wondered what it said that he had slept so well within feet of someone like Crux or Nile. Dr Steiner would probably have a field day with that.

There was a familiar make-up bag and brunette wig waiting for him in the bathroom. Alex didn't need to have it spelled out but set to work making sense of everything again.

A late breakfast had arrived by the time he reappeared. Crux had settled down with a cup of coffee, a newspaper, and a croissant from what looked like a fancy basket. She looked up at his approach and he stopped and waited for her verdict.

Crux gestured for him to do a full turn with a slight twist of her finger and he complied without argument. Finally she nodded.

"Acceptable. You're out of practice but that's what we're here for. You'll need more clothes, of course, and we'll visit the gym here when we have handled that. You need to get more experience with make-up and with doing your hair. Perhaps we'll work on latex prosthetics, too. It will be useful for you to know at least the theory of how to manipulate your age. Sit, Aleks. You must be hungry."

More like starved. It was a big breakfast order but Alex did his best to demolish most of it while Crux went through the newspaper.

It was only when Alex had mostly eaten his fill and finished his tea that Crux spoke again.

"Major Yu was assassinated two days ago," she said casually as she picked up her coffee for another sip.

For a moment, Alex felt the ground fall away beneath his feet. "How?" He knew, he knew exactly how it had happened, how it had to have happened, but he had to be sure.

"Someone shot down his helicopter, it seems. The going theory is that Kroll paid for an assassin before his untimely death, or that someone took unkindly to Yu's assassination of a member of the executive board. Of course, ASIS are prime suspects, too. It may have been an inside job. Someone knew exactly how to target him."

Alex had been about to leave Baghdad by then after two and a half week in the constant company of Nile and later Thomas' people. Beyond suspicion. He wondered if Yassen had planned it like that or it had just been a fortunate coincidence. Because it had been Yassen, Alex didn't doubt it for a second. It didn't matter if the man had carried it out himself or hired someone outside of SCORPIA's usual circles. The method was too similar to Alex's suggestion to be anything else.

Kroll at the meeting in Paris. Now Yu.

And then there were six.

Would they speed up their search for new board members now? Even if they did, it would take time to get them up to standards, especially if they were outsiders.

Alex very carefully didn't react. Just nodded. "His security was pretty good," he said instead. "I'm surprised someone managed."

"Several people have tried before. I suppose this time someone was skilled enough to finish the job." If she noticed anything off about Alex's response, she didn't say anything. "Finish your breakfast. We have quite a program to complete today."

Alex glanced at the mostly-demolished breakfast. Then he grabbed another slice of toast. He suspected he would need the energy.

* * *

They left the following morning with a large additional suitcase. They travelled as mother and daughter. Alex was the brand new owner of a number of clothes for Cheshire. If the people in the stores had suspected he wasn't actually female, at least they hadn't made a big deal of it. He was tall, several inches taller than Crux, but she made a number of corrections to his disguise over the course of the day – mannerism, his way of walking, touching up his make-up – and by the end of it he moved a lot smoother than he had when he visited Panama City in that same disguise.

To Alex's surprise, it was a genuine road trip. For two weeks, they were simply tourists. He saw the Grand Canyon, went shooting in Nevada, saw Alcatraz and Hollywood and every other tourist trap around.

It was nothing at all like travelling with Ian, which had been all about immersing himself in new cultures and learning things. In a fun way, sure, but still. This was just genuine, unrepentant tourist stuff, and he loved it.

Alex did wonder about it, but the explanation made sense when he asked.

"You were already a high-priority target. You're about to move up on that list by a significant degree. You may never get the chance to simply go sightseeing like this again, and certainly not with the American obsession with security."

Point. That in mind, Alex was determined to enjoy it all the more; the last bit of normality he would have in a long time. Possibly the last bit of normality ever, with the sort of thing he was about to get into.

It was a holiday of sorts, the closest he had come to a normal one in a long time. Maybe Yassen had planned it like that, maybe he hadn't, but it didn't change the fact that Crux could have chosen any number of ways to make him practice his disguise, and she had picked this. Somewhere new and interesting, with lessons he enjoyed and sightseeing and generally just having fun, and the bit of warmth in his chest unfurled a little more. Crux wasn't a _good_ person, and maybe she had ulterior motives, but she was as kind to him as she could afford to be, and that mattered.

"Thank you," he said quietly and knew she would understand.

By the end of the two weeks, Cheshire had solidified in his mind as a person in her own right, much like he suspected Crux had planned. He had always had a background story to work with, but now the little details that made her real were there. Her taste in food, her favourite soda, the way she did her hair, her habit of carrying gum in her pocket and forgetting to take it out before doing laundry … she wasn't just Orion in disguise, but an identity of her own. He had learned to change her looks and mannerism as needed but the core of it was still there.

Alex had expected Crux to have an assignment immediately after. Yassen had said she was between assignments, after all. He didn't expect they would be going back to Abu Dhabi together.

"Dr Three has offered me an apprenticeship," Crux explained the night before they departed from Las Vegas again. She sounded pleased.

It would have been a nightmare for Alex. From what he knew of Crux, that sounded like a dream job. Paid to practice her hobby.

"Congratulations," he replied and tried not to sound too dubious. Based on her fond smile, he didn't quite manage.

"Such a polite boy," she said. "MI6 always had dreadful asset management. You could have been their crown jewel if they had treated you right. You're never too young to learn the fundamentals of torture and interrogation, but it takes age and experience to appreciate it for the art that it is. You're still very young for something like that."

Alex hoped he never reached a point where he _did_ appreciate it like she did, but then, he had grown disturbingly used to murder already. That was not a thought he liked to linger on.

"It's a permanent assignment, then?" he asked instead.

"You won't find too many good assassins in the field past forty in traditional roles. Those that remain in the role are either exceptionally skilled or those who failed to consider the future. You would be surprised at the number of operatives that give little thought to savings or paying off their debt to SCORPIA. It's a physically demanding job and a single mistake can get you killed. The sensible ones that live that long have planned for it. They retire, work only occasionally, or find another job."

"Like you." And Yassen, Alex didn't add. The words were familiar from Yassen's own comments about retirement.

"Well," Crux said, "I'm not quite forty but I am old enough to be your mother. The body slows and weakens as you grow old. Eventually, you can no longer keep up. Dr Three has been searching for an apprentice to teach at Malagosto for a while. I'm honoured that he feels I might be skilled enough for that."

Alex wasn't even sure how old she was. His guess was late thirties but with her skills with disguises, he could easily be half a decade or more off. He could probably look up her file if he really wanted to know. He probably had the clearance now, unless her promotion meant that her file got a higher clearance level, too. He wondered if his own did.

"Dress in practical clothes," Crux continued. "You will be Aleksandr again when we leave tomorrow."

Alex nodded. "Cheshire's clothes?"

"Bring them. Some of them are unisex and the rest could reasonably pass for mine."

Alex would put them in storage with the rest of his few belongings, then. He didn't mind. They might be useful again, and most of it should fit even if he grew another inch or two.

Aleksandr and his mother left Las Vegas at noon the following day. Two layovers and some twenty-six hours later, they landed well after midnight in Abu Dhabi.

There was a room waiting for Alex at a nearby hotel. By then, it could have been a mattress in a closet somewhere for all that Alex cared. All he wanted was a chance to sleep. The rest of the world could wait.

* * *

Many thanks to dblanc for suggesting the change in Alex's training routine!

Next: Curiosity killed the cat. Or at the very least made it deal with really uncomfortable questions.


	42. Curiosity and the Cat

A/N: Next chapter will probably be a full week again, because I'm working out some plot stuff down the line.

* * *

There was note from Yassen with Alex's breakfast the following morning and a white Mercedes waiting for him when he left the hotel. Half an hour later, he was face to face with the man himself in a penthouse apartment overlooking ever-growing Abu Dhabi.

A temporary place, Alex suspected. Too exposed. Too easy to find. Too hard to defend. Everything Yassen despised. The décor mirrored it, all designer stuff that had probably come with the apartment itself, but with no personal touches but the weapons lying here and there, as well as two laptops.

Yassen looked good. That was the first thing Alex noticed. A month of being a member of the executive board seemed to have agreed with him. Not that Yassen ever really looked tired, but something about him seemed … pleased. Satisfied with something.

They were alone in the apartment. Alex didn't bother to stand at ease but he did greet Yassen a little more respectfully than he normally would have.

"Sir."

"Orion," he replied. "I trust you behaved yourself?"

Alex didn't doubt Yassen had received frequent reports. He answered, anyway. "Yes, sir. It was … educational."

He also didn't doubt that Yassen knew exactly what he meant by that, and it was confirmed by the man's faintly amused expression.

"You made a good impression. Well done, Alex."

Just like that, the unspoken formality was gone and Alex felt some of the tension ease from his shoulders. "Thanks." He took a breath and asked the question he had wanted to for two weeks. "Yu?"

"Had become an inconvenience." Yassen's words were as cool and practical as always. "Your report was thorough and accurate. You did very well."

Had Yassen done it himself or had he found someone else for the job? Alex didn't know but he suspected the latter. Yassen himself would have been busy catching up on everything that went with his new position. So busy that he would have been beyond any suspicion when it came to Yu's assassination. He wasn't about to ask, though.

Alex did appreciate the praise. It always meant something, coming from Yassen. The man wasn't known for his expressiveness. It didn't stop Alex from prying, though.

"Inconvenience how?" With Yu's sort of influence and the sheer amount of reach he had, he had to have been a huge asset to SCORPIA. Alex hadn't liked the man, but that didn't mean he couldn't appreciate how powerful and dangerous Yu had been. One of the most influential members of the board. Yu, Kurst, and Kroll, though Kroll had gone about it the entirely wrong way. Of those three, only Kurst was still alive. Alex wondered what that would do to the dynamics on the executive board.

"He had grown weak. Too overconfident and too vulnerable," Yassen said. "ASIS had taken a strong interest in him. It was merely a matter of time before they would target him directly, and he knew a significant amount of highly damaging information about SCORPIA. I would not trust him not to break under torture." He paused for just a second, just enough to catch Alex's attention, and when he continued his voice was slightly softer. "He had also taken too much of an interest in you. Your handling of Ash drew his attention beyond what it already was. It was an unacceptable risk."

Yassen had killed Yu for being a threat to Alex.

The meaning carried across to Alex loud and clear. The rest were perfectly reasonable, rational explanations and made sense to Alex. It didn't change the very clear impression that they were simply excuses tagged on to the real one.

Yu had become a potential threat to Alex, so Yassen took care of it.

Alex felt a little like the floor had just tilted ninety degrees and back again; the raw realisation of just how _much_ Yassen actually cared in his own cold-blooded way, and he swallowed to get rid of the sudden lump in his throat.

"And Yu's snakehead?" Alex asked, trying to distract himself from the lingering dizziness.

"It started to collapse almost immediately. He always made sure his lieutenants weren't skilled or influential enough to take over. It was an additional level of security for himself. The organisation will crumble. Perhaps someone will try to take over some of the pieces, perhaps not. ASIS has already started to move against the remnants, but it's doubtful they will manage to crush it completely. Some will remain."

The snakehead had been huge. It had reached across all of south-east Asia and well beyond. "Losing Yu must have been expensive to SCORPIA."

"Not as expensive as you would think. Yu kept his snakehead almost completely separate from SCORPIA. There was some overlap, of course, and he did use those resources for a number of the operations he was responsible for, but the profits went solely to Yu himself. It will be an annoyance to SCORPIA but not an insurmountable loss."

It was still a lot of lost influence, but Alex didn't point that out. If Yassen didn't think it mattered, he wasn't going to bring it up. Instead he changed the topic.

"You wanted me out of the way."

"There will be a number of people displeased about their sudden loss of influence," Yassen replied. "Yu may have terrified his people into obedience but a number of them also earned significant amounts of money in his service. Most of them will lose everything with his death. Some will still have the wealth and influence to seek revenge."

And the people who had been near Yu would have been the prime suspects, especially those employees who weren't part of Yu's inner circle. Those who didn't have anywhere near as much to lose with his death.

Alex would have been on that list, except Alex was the newly-promoted second in command of a member of the executive board and had spent two weeks in Baghdad at the time of Yu's assassination. He had undoubtedly still been a person of interest, but he would have been ruled out fast. He had no motive, no opportunity. He had worked for Yu for only two weeks and carried out his duties to the letter. If he had wanted Yu dead, he could have ignored Ash's treason.

Once more Yassen had protected him. Not from Alex's own decisions for once, but from SCORPIA's lethal politics.

Alex took a deep breath. "So what's the plan now?"

"You have an appointment at Malagosto tomorrow. You will need a series of vaccines before the next operation, and you'll need your tracker removed. It was acceptable for a newly graduated operative but not for the second in command of a member of the executive board."

Because if Alex got captured, they could learn a lot of things from that implant, Yassen didn't need to say that out loud. Not just whatever place Yassen might eventually decide to settle, but a number of SCORPIA's other locations, too. It was not longer just a record of his movements and a list of places that were either already known or would long since have stopped being more than mildly interesting to various intelligence agencies. It was now a potential goldmine of information, and SCORPIA knew it.

It would be a relief to have that thing out. Alex had learned not to focus on it, and he would forget about it for long stretches of time, and then he would remember and that awareness would be right back. That someone was watching, that someone was always watching, that anything even the slightest bit suspicious could get him killed, and that he might be called back for a check of it at any time, just like on Santa Catarina.

As for the rest …

"Do I want to know just where we're going to need that many vaccines?"

"Central Africa," Yassen said. "Though you'll be taking a detour to Argentina first. The client has an important shipment due and wants additional security for it."

A detour. To _Argentina._ SCORPIA had some pretty weird definitions of words sometimes – 'not unreasonable' was a big one – and 'detour' just got added to the list, too.

It was probably drugs, Alex thought a little uncharitably. And he got sent because the board knew he wouldn't even look at that stuff, not with the threat of Yassen's punishment hanging over his head if there was the slightest hint that Alex had tried anything stronger than a properly prescribed painkiller.

At least Dr Javadi had done a good job with the implant from the Miami mission. She hadn't just removed it but had done her best to fix the badly-healed cut they had used as cover in the first place. It had healed just fine. Another year, and the scar would be mostly gone. The tracker between his shoulder blades was a lot smaller, but Alex would still feel better with a professional to handle it.

That, and the vaccines. He knew Yassen was right. The list of vaccines he already had probably wouldn't be enough for somewhere like Central Africa if he got even a bit outside of a city. Lagos had been fine. It had been three days in an affluent neighbourhood in a huge city. In the middle of nowhere – because bad guys really liked their privacy, as Alex had learned the hard way – it would be a lot different.

"And the plan for today?" Alex asked.

"You will prove to me you have not been slacking off for the past month."

Alex wasn't even surprised. He had kind of expected it, Yassen being a member of the executive board or not. That was all right. He could use the exercise.

* * *

The following day found Alex at Malagosto. He had spent a day with Yassen, letting the man gauge the state of things with Alex a month out of his sight, and everything considered it had gone quite all right. He had also spent a couple of hours on his laptop proving that he had paid attention to Nile's lessons in administrative and logistic stuff as well, with Yassen keeping a close eye on things.

It hadn't been a bad day. It had been relaxed. Comfortable. He suspected his visit to see Dr Javadi would be anything but.

Alex got vivid proof of that when he arrived at the small clinic and found not Dr Javadi but Dr Three preparing a tray full of syringes.

"Our good doctor is at a medical conference for a few days," Dr Three explained at Alex's surprised look. "As a medical doctor myself, I offered to take over. It's so rare I have the opportunity to use that side of my skills these days."

 _Wonder why_ , Alex thought but didn't say it out loud. Medical care by a world-renowned expert on torture. Joy. He wondered where Crux was. Maybe she was still getting settled. Maybe she had taken over Dr Three's classes for the day, if he had any.

Alex watched the tray of needles with resignation. "That's a lot of them."

"A booster for the common ones, of course. You remain covered for hepatitis A and B as well as yellow fever. You're about due for your typhoid booster, and close enough that we may as well add the meningitis one since you're here. You will need the rabies vaccine as well, and that one comes with additional injections in seven and twenty-one days. Cholera is a concern in the area but should not impact you. In a month, all of them should be fully effective, though we may need to send you off sooner than that. And, of course, you will need antimalarial drugs, though that will be in tablets. Some such drugs can have unpleasant side effects. If they grow too much for you to function optimally, we may need to take you off of the medicine and make do with mosquito repellent."

That sounded so very reassuring. Alex could hardly contain his enthusiasm.

In the end, it took five injections before Dr Three was finally done using him as a pincushion. It took conscious effort to keep himself still for every one of them. Alex vividly remembered what some of Dr Three's concoctions could do, and even knowing that these were vaccines, the instinctive fear from his two weeks in resistance to interrogation still lingered.

Alex didn't even want to think about the number of injections he would have been given without his unique sort of upbringing. At least he had a lot of them already. Hopefully some of them would last for a good, long while.

"Now," Dr Three continued. "On to the matter of your tracker."

That was almost the easiest part of it. Certainly a lot less uncomfortable. Local anaesthetic and a small cut followed by a single stitch got the implant handled. Alex took a look at it on the tray afterwards, metallic and smaller than a grain of rice. It would probably be destroyed. Just in case. It was probably why Dr Three had wanted to do it himself in the first place. Make sure the thing was properly disposed of.

Alex was out and on his way again within the hour, a large bottle of antimalarial tablets in his bag. He was a little sore from the injections, and his shoulders would probably ache in the morning, but at least that was most of them. He would need extra rounds for the rabies one but that was all.

He stopped for lunch on the way, enjoyed the weather, and grabbed an ice cream for dessert before he headed back. Yassen was gone when Alex returned, but he had expected that and Yassen had given him access to the apartment. The guard outside didn't even blink, and Alex settled down on the couch in the silent apartment and just sat there for a while.

It was very, very quiet when he was all alone there. Quiet and empty and impersonal.

Yassen's laptop was gone, but Alex's was still on the table. Alex hesitated for a moment. Then his curiosity got the better of him. A few minutes later, he had made his way through the various verification processes. It still felt a little like he was doing something wrong.

Alex used his new clearance to check his own file, something that had been nagging him for a long time. He doubted anyone could blame him. He was fifteen and curious, it was almost a given he would do just that.

It made for unnerving reading. Unnerving enough that he almost regretted opening it in the first place.

It had the usual things – his assessment, reports from Malagosto, assignments, medical history – but there were more disturbing things, too. A recording from his graduation assignment – he had been right; the board had watched it live – and a number of recordings from his RTI course. They hadn't just watched his reaction to being drugged; they had kept him drugged to the gills for two full days on a number of different things to make sure he wasn't a threat to them, and he remembered none of it. Nothing. With no daylight in the cells, it was frighteningly easy to lose entire days.

There were a number of personal details as well. Reports from Brookland, copies of classified MI6 information, Dr Withka's evaluation … and a number of reports from Dr Steiner that Alex clicked on despite every instinct telling him he didn't want to know.

 _\- sixty percent probability of failure, though admittedly the estimate is a difficult one for this student as the full extent of Cossack's influence remains unseen. The student has been known to react in unpredicted ways under pressure -_

 _\- event of a successful graduation, the recommended approach will be to keep the operative busy. The operative has a history of suppression as a semi-successful coping mechanism and has been trained to adapt; if he is successfully kept stable until the adaptation stage is over, the result will with eighty percent probability be a steady, efficient operative -_

 _\- strong attachment to Cossack, it is recommended to permit a partnership. The training methods have produced excellent results and this is expected to carry over into a working partnership -_

 _\- recommended that the operative's refusal to harm children is indulged for now; it may be an option for punishment should the operative make a mistake not quite grave enough to see him permanently retired, or if the more unfortunate aspects of his personality become an issue at a later stage -_

 _\- result of his Stockholm syndrome, reinforced by prolonged isolation. Without any training in resistance given by MI6, physical or mental, the operative -_

Alex closed the file again. He was still staring at the screen when Yassen returned.

"Alex?"

"I read my file."

"I expected as much," Yassen replied.

Alex finally looked at him. "Do I have Stockholm syndrome?"

Yassen was silent for long seconds. "Perhaps not in the traditional sense," he eventually said, "but to a degree, yes, I would expect so. Such is Dr Steiner's belief. I am inclined to agree to some extent."

Alex swallowed. "I don't think you're supposed to admit that sort of thing."

"Would it make it any less true?"

Alex opened his mouth to answer. Closed it again when he realised he didn't actually know what to say to that. The safe-house in Russia had never seemed bad to him. For the most part, he had liked it there. It was a simple life, but he kept busy and never got the chance to get bored and no one was trying to kill him. And yes, Yassen had been an absolute slave driver at times, and there had been the one time when he had gripped Alex's throat and made it very clear that he wouldn't tolerate Alex doing anything less than his very best, but -

\- It had only been the once. And frankly, compared to assignments and the sort of punishments SCORPIA had been known to dole out, Yassen had been positively kind. The implied threat hadn't been nice, but he could have done a lot worse and with SCORPIA's complete blessings, too. As far as they were concerned, Yassen _had_ done a lot worse. Everyone seemed convinced Yassen had used physical violence to get Alex that well-trained. That obedient.

Was that what Stockholm syndrome felt like?

"You were forced to adapt to living in complete isolation with someone who held your life in his hands and with no realistic way to escape. It was a voluntary choice, but one made with very little in the way of information and even less knowledge about the sort of life you would have if you survived the training. Ian Rider taught you to adapt, so you subconsciously followed those lessons as a way to adapt to my expectations and minimise the threat I posed to you. You are young and your personality is still malleable. This worked to my advantage."

Well, when he put it that way …

Alex ignored the chill at the thought and at Yassen's cold, clinical description. "Doesn't it get less effective if you tell me?"

"Perhaps," Yassen agreed. "The possibility is there."

Was it Stockholm syndrome if Alex knew and still felt the same way? Or was it just that he wasn't willing to actually believe it?

He wished he had never clicked on those files. He hated talking about things. He hated it when adults put on their most condescending attitude and tried to analyse him. He had hated his sessions with Dr Steiner, he had hated the sessions with Dr Withka only marginally less, and he wished he could burn every single report they had ever written about him.

They were wrong, anyway, he thought viciously. He had graduated, and Yassen had done his best not to keep Alex buried in work until he adapted or broke, and most importantly, he was still _Alex._

He wasn't SCORPIA's faithful little pet, he wasn't one of their mindless assassins, and he would prove it if it killed him. He would tear down the entire place around them or die succeeding, and pay them back for everything they had done to his family and every single innocent that got caught up in their operations.

Maybe Yassen knew where his thoughts had gone. Alex wouldn't be surprised. The man didn't comment on them, though.

"I did what was necessary to keep you alive," Yassen said instead. "You succeeded beyond my every expectation."

"At getting my mind twisted?" Alex asked, a little bitter.

"At adapting. At surviving." Yassen's eyes were utterly unreadable. "Hunter was a trained agent, able to adapt at will and act the part he would need to in order to survive his mission. Even then he deliberately chose to focus on a position as an instructor rather than a career as an assassin when he had the option. You were fourteen. You did not have the stable personality of an adult, nor the training necessary to pull off such an act. If the board had doubted you even once, you would have been disposed of. Do you believe you could have acted the part convincingly on your own? That you could have graduated?"

 _You may hate me, but I will do what it takes to see you survive._

Alex had thought Yassen had referred to the relentless training. Then he had thought Yassen referred to making him kill. Now he was starting to understand just how far that promise had gone and how brutally pragmatic Yassen had been about it.

Alex Rider would not have been able to survive as SCORPIA's the way he was, so Yassen had handled that in the most efficient way he knew and in a way that would leave no question with the board about his loyalty. Part training, part cold reasoning, part isolation, until Alex had been what Yassen needed him to be.

Alex's attention drifted back to the laptop. What did he even say to that? The most unnerving thing was almost how readily Yassen admitted it. He could have denied it and explained it away as something else, and Alex would have been willing to believe him, but he hadn't.

Part of him knew he should be angry. Mostly he felt tired. He had known a lot of it already, looking back. He had known Yassen had tailored his training to turn him into a suitable partner and second in command, he had known Yassen had trained him to take orders. He just hadn't put the rest of the pieces together, or he hadn't wanted to.

"Alex."

Alex looked up again. There was a glimmer of something that might have been sympathy in Yassen's eyes. "This is likely little different from what would have happened if you had stayed in MI6's service. They would have been less obvious about it, perhaps, but they would have done what they could to condition you if you had survived and remained useful. Blackmail doesn't work forever. They would have wanted another hold on you. Perhaps a combination of addiction to the danger and the desire to feel useful. You already had a hard time adapting to normal life between your missions. Eventually, you would have felt like you belonged nowhere. You would have lived a life of lies, keeping secrets until your friendships slowly faded away. Your grades would have made you an unacceptable student to most universities, and your attendance would have been too low to fix those grades without extensive use of tutors. MI6 would have stepped in and given you a purpose. Made you feel useful. Offered you the training you should have been given before they ever sent you off in the first place. And you would have gone along with it, because there would be little else for you in the world outside."

Would they? Maybe Jones would have pretended to object, but Alex thought of Blunt and didn't doubt Yassen's theory. If Alex had been useful, they would have done whatever it took to keep him. All the better if he ended up dropping out of school. If no one else would have him and with no real options for a future, where else would he go?

"That doesn't make it any better."

"Perhaps not," Yassen agreed. "But you can't afford any illusions about the nature of this world."

Alex didn't reply. He wasn't sure what to say. What to do. There wasn't much he _could_ do. Yassen had told him the truth, or what Yassen considered the truth, anyway. Maybe Yassen had used manipulation and borderline indoctrination to get what he wanted, but there were a lot of things in there that hadn't been that. Yassen trusted him, even knowing Alex's plans. He had protected him the best he could, trained him to survive beyond what SCORPIA would find useful, and promoted him even when that meant putting a double agent in the heart of the organisation.

He had told Alex about his father, his _mother_ , had been there through Alex's nightmares, had lied to the executive board to keep Alex safe -

That had to have been real, hadn't it? Yassen had gambled his own life the moment he had lied to protect Alex from the repercussions of his decisions, he had gambled his life again when he had trusted Alex to watch his back and to not betray him even knowing that Alex was a potential double agent … that wasn't just trying to twist Alex into a loyal, obedient right hand. That was well beyond that.

Maybe Alex didn't understand Yassen's motivations, but at least that was something he could work with. He would have to, because he was in so deep that the only way out now was to see it through, to one end or the other.

Alex nodded slowly. Made his decision. "Now what?"

There were a dozen questions in those two words. Yassen picked the pragmatic approach.

"I recommend you read up on the operation and that you bring a combat team as support for the shipment." Yassen's attention lingered pointedly on Alex's laptop.

Right, that was Alex's own job now. There was no one to hold his hand. Straight back to work, then. Alex had managed to get as many answers out of Yassen as he could for now, and Yassen was probably right. Time to see what sort of operation that required a list of vaccines quite that long.

Alex still had questions, a lot of them, but they would have to wait.

 _The operative has a history of suppression as a semi-successful coping mechanism and has been trained to adapt -_

Alex firmly ignored the mocking memory of Dr Steiner's report and set to work.

* * *

LookingforAlaska: Dr Three has no plans of shaping Crux into a board member. He had simply been looking for apprentice to take over his teaching duties, and a patient, competent instructor who loves their work can be surprisingly hard to find.

Next: Sabotage, Corruption, Intelligence and … Animal Wrangling?


	43. Be Prepared

A/N: As always, thank you for reading, and for your reviews! :)

* * *

As it turned out, Alex had been wrong. According to the paperwork he got, the shipment wasn't drugs but a dozen highly-trained guard dogs injected with some sort of nanorobots. Hideously expensive dogs, too, given that the client wasn't just chartering a plane big enough to transport that sort of thing but was also sending someone like Alex there with a combat team for backup to make sure the animals arrived all right.

Animal wrangling. One more class to add to Malagosto's curriculum.

Alex didn't argue, though. If someone was willing to pay that much for extra security, SCORPIA was happy to let them, and that meant Alex would be sent off no matter how stupid he thought the job was. At least they weren't asking him to kill someone.

Sagitta had been back on active duty for three weeks by then, and Alex didn't hesitate to divert them to his assignment instead. SCORPIA had a number of military teams in the Middle East. Finding a replacement for them would be easy, and Alex wanted people he knew he could trust and get along with. Not just for the flight to Argentina, but for the rest of the operation as well. With a couple of weeks to go before they were due in Argentina, the team would have enough time to arrive.

With access to their complete files, Alex was also a little envious to find out they already had the full range of vaccines Alex had been put through by Dr Three. With the sort of places SCORPIA sometimes sent them, it had apparently been deemed necessary. Even the rabies one. Alex was a little tempted to ask. It sounded like there might be an interesting story behind that one.

The client was Theodoros van Rensburg and he was in it for revenge. He didn't have the connections to make it happen himself, but he had plenty of money to spare, and that could solve most issues. He paid SCORPIA to ensure everything happened smoothly, and that included acting as a delivery service. He had some expensive guard dogs that needed transported and a runway within a reasonable distance from his home. Everything else was SCORPIA's problem – and by extension Alex's.

It took quite a few hours of research and Yassen's ultimate approval just to make sure he had it right, but in the end Alex arranged for an Antonov An-124 Ruslan from Abu Dhabi. He knew it was probably a bit much with something of that size, but with the price of the cargo, he wanted to get it right. He had the weight and measurements for the dozen cages they would need to transport – all of them big, not surprising – and made sure there was room to spare for the additional cargo in the paperwork as well. At least he could delegate the headache of arranging for refuelling and all to the crew.

Alex had never really thought about just how much planning went into one of SCORPIA's larger operations, but he had the horrible suspicion that he was about to find out. Everything from weapons and ammunition that would be sent separately in sealed shipping containers to Rensburg's estate and to questions about things as basic as food. Did they trust the client enough to put their well-being – and ultimately the entire operation – in the hands of his kitchen staff? Did they trust there was no potential double agent? They had taken the risk on Santa Catarina. Alex was inclined to do the same now. They could manage just fine on military field rations but absolutely nobody wanted to.

A part of Alex strongly suspected that Yassen deliberately kept him busy. He knew he was being unreasonable, that Yassen had his own things to organise, that this sort of planning came with his new position, but the thought still lingered. Alex was still rattled, still bitterly regretted looking at his file in the first place, and now he would be kept busy with other things until he successfully suppressed those issues or got too busy to think about it. That had been Dr Steiner's recommendation, after all.

 _Keep the operative busy._

Alex had his answers. It wasn't Yassen's fault that he didn't like what he heard. Maybe he shouldn't be surprised Yassen had been so brutally honest, either. Yassen had never been one to approve of comforting little white lies, and it had been the perfect time to explain the facts of life. Alex had his answers. Now he would be buried in work for several months, too busy to linger on it.

Right now Alex didn't want any more answers, didn't want to hear more than he already had, and Yassen had to know it. Alex would throw his energy into his new job, just like SCORPIA expected him to. It wasn't just his life on the line if he messed up, either, but Sagitta's and whatever security Yassen brought as well. If he missed something important, they could all be in big trouble. It was an added incentive to get it right and do his job.

 _Like a good little pet._

Alex would be on the flight from Abu Dhabi, as would Sagitta, and they would be right there all the way to Argentina, then on to Rensburg's home in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It would be a long, miserable flight, and it would probably be even worse for the dogs. At least Rensburg had a handler with some vet-training waiting in Argentina who would travel with them.

Dogs delivered, Alex and Sagitta would stay as additional security. It wasn't just transporting the animals; SCORPIA could have delegated that task to anyone. It was making an impression and ensuring the client knew how much they valued him.

Rensburg had visions and money, and SCORPIA had the means and expertise to see it happen. He was a widower who had lost his wife and son to a common robbery. No planned attack, nothing meant to target them, but simply a crime of opportunity in a country still wounded from years of conflict.

Rensburg had been furious, had grieved, and then he had snapped.

Alex understood revenge as a normal person did, and maybe a little darker. The bitter, vicious, overwhelming black hole at the centre of everything and the thoughts of getting even, of making them _suffer_ that never really went away. If Yu had told him to shoot Ash, there would have been a very real risk that Alex would have done it without a flicker of remorse.

Rensburg, like Sayle, had taken it to extremes. Someone in the Congo had killed his family, and he planned to get even. Not on the robbers themselves, long since vanished and quite possibly dead, but on the whole country and all of Central Africa if he got the chance. _Biblical retribution_ , he had demanded, punishment for the greed that had killed his family, and something that couldn't be traced back to human hands.

Desmond McCain had the right idea but lacked vision and was nothing but a common criminal in the end. Those had been Rensburg's exact words.

And so he had hired SCORPIA. To find a solution, to arrange the details, to set everything up. And if it worked to his satisfaction, to continue on for as long as he was willing to pay. Start in the Congo, continue with the neighbouring countries, and carry on until he had his revenge or the continent itself was left bleeding from the losses. It was not a fast operation but Rensburg had time. Months and years if needed.

The solution had been biological. Parts of Africa, poor and with little access to medical care, were frequently ravaged by outbreaks of any number of diseases. The Ebola River had given name to one of them but that was by no means the only one.

McCain's plague had been artificial and meant to generate money and attention. Rensburg wanted something subtle. Lethal, but natural. Something that would take a long time to draw attention.

Rensburg was not a religious man but he had apparently been willing to overlook that for retribution on a biblical scale for the cardinal sin of greed, starting with the mines that had helped fund so much violence in the first place. Arrange for a virus, a plague. Something that took some days to show and didn't infect too easily. Infest the mines, legal or illegal. One or two to begin with and then slowly add to the number. When he had proof it worked, they could expand. The Congo had gold, diamonds, cobalt, copper – any number of valuable resources. And a number of those mines were borderline illegal ones at best. By Rensburg's logic, anyone in those mines deserved it. They would carry the virus back with them to their families, their homes, and they would continue to spread their disease until someone realised where the infection came from and stopped it.

And Yassen Gregorovich, who had already dealt with Sayle's modified smallpox virus meant to target children and never even blinked, was the perfect person to give the operation to. He was also, Alex thought a little snidely, probably the only one of the current board who would actually be fine outside of the nice, cultured, civilised places that the rest of the executive board favoured.

The _Fer de Lance_ would leave Alexandria for a two week journey and settle off of the coast of Angola and the thin strip of coastline that the Democratic Republic of the Congo claimed for its own. Not as a base, but as a convenient backup, should they need to leave under the radar.

"Isn't that pirate-infested waters?" Alex asked.

"That would be a bit further north," Yassen corrected. "But yes, it has been known to happen."

"She's expensive. Someone will attack," Alex warned.

Yassen's smile was thin and sharp. "Let them try."

Alex quite suddenly pitied anyone who decided to take their chances against Yassen Gregorovich's private yacht. He didn't ask about the details.

He also didn't ask about the virus. He would find out eventually and right now he slept better not knowing. It was enough to know it would be lethal. He would find out the details soon enough.

Alex would have wondered how anyone who think up a plan like that, arrange for a deadly virus, and then sit back and watch it spread, all in the name of money, except SCORPIA had done it before. That and a number of other things that were just as horrifying.

Yassen Gregorovich was a cold-blooded killer. Sometimes Alex forgot that and the reminders were all the more chilling for it.

If he had been with MI6 still, he would probably have been out there, trying to stop it. Now … he wanted to do something, he _needed_ to do something, but he didn't know what. He had tried on Santa Catarina and that had been a disaster. If he tried something now, he would probably be killed and someone else would take over. It would be a delay at the most. If he tried to contact someone … Yassen would watch him like a hawk, Alex knew it, and even if he didn't, SCORPIA wouldn't accept another failure from Alex. Maybe it would still stop Rensburg's plans, maybe not, but it would do nothing to stop SCORPIA the next time some madman with dreams of mass murder decided to hire them.

It was not a thought Alex wanted to linger on. The feeling of helplessness and inevitability. He had to do something and he had no idea what.

Like the unwanted answers in his file, he ignored it by throwing his full attention into all the logistic details of the operation instead. He had always sort of figured that by the time an operation ended up with one of the members of the executive board, most of the details had been handled. As it turned out, he was very wrong.

Miami had been easy. Go here, play this role, gather information … although maybe it had been a lot more work for Yassen. It probably had. Sorting through the piles of intel on Rensburg, the area, his plans, and everything else was a bit of an eye-opener, and not all of it good.

There was a lot of intel. Far from all of it lived up to the standards Yassen expected. Alex waited until he had gone through the full load of information before he brought it up. He kept hoping he would find something better further down the pile, just severely misplaced.

No such luck.

"The recon on the potential target mines …" Alex trailed off. He hoped he was wrong, but he suspected that wouldn't be the case.

"It's not good enough," Yassen agreed and confirmed Alex's fears. "We will need to see to it ourselves."

Reconnaissance missions in the middle of rural Congo. It just kept getting better.

The cholera vaccine got added to his appointment for the second rabies shot. Staying at Rensburg's luxury estate was one thing. Travelling in the rural areas of Central Africa was something else entirely. He also got some fairly strict, updated instructions regarding malaria.

"Go nowhere without long trousers, long sleeves, mosquito repellent, and a bednet," Dr Javadi told him after he had been given his second rabies shot and swallowed his cholera vaccine. At least that wasn't an injection. "Atovaquone-proguanil is the only acceptable antimalarial drug we have available in your case. The side effects should be minor. You will stay on it unless the side effects are severe enough to leave you unable to function normally, and I expect you to have seen your medic about that long before it reaches that point. The two alternatives are unsuitable. Doxycycline can make you unusually sensitive to sun exposure. It's an option but one we would prefer to avoid. Mefloquine has been known to cause psychiatric effects. We don't prescribe it for any Malagosto graduate unless they have a proven history of no serious side effects or we have the time to watch for unfortunate reactions. In your case, we have neither. It's a rare side effect, but we have had unpleasant experiences with it before."

Alex didn't want to ask, he really didn't. His mouth acted before his brain could, anyway.

"Psychiatric effects?"

Dr Javadi glanced at him. "It is considered entirely unsuitable for those with certain psychiatric conditions. Even for those that don't, beyond a number of potential side effects only dangerous to the operative themselves, it can also cause paranoia, hallucinations, insomnia, and vivid dreams."

It took Alex about half a second to imagine what that sort of side effects could cause in combination with a trained assassin, someone trained to kill on instinct, and decide that he wholeheartedly agreed with SCORPIA's unusually cautious approach.

"... Right," Alex said. "Long trousers, long sleeves, mosquito repellent, and a bednet, then."

And hope they didn't have to spend that many days doing reconnaissance.

Dr Javadi smiled. Just a little. "Exactly. Dismissed, Mr Rider."

Alex made his escape before she could change her mind.

* * *

Slowly, bit by bit, Alex also started to incorporate the exercises Crux had shown him into his daily workout in between everything else he had to do. Some were familiar from Yassen's own workout. Some Alex vaguely remembered seeing at Malagosto. Yassen spotted it immediately but he waited a while before he commented.

"You have started to work on agility," he remarked and continued when Alex's only response was a defiant expression. "Flexibility more than visible strength. Hunter had muscle. A soldier's build. You are gaining the same."

"I might not," Alex said. "He was former military, it could have been the way he trained. We don't know. Flexibility and agility will let me look harmless and innocent for longer. I'm not my father."

"No," Yassen agreed, "you're not. That sort of training will let you pass for female longer, too. Crux's work, then."

Alex kept his defiant expression. Finally Yassen nodded, just slightly.

"It may be useful. I expect you to retain your current level of physical condition, however."

If his standards fell below Yassen's expectations, Alex would be in a lot of pain. He didn't need that spelled out. It still sounded a little like approval, and that was good enough for Alex.

* * *

Alex met Sagitta in Abu Dhabi on the evening of their departure. They all seemed to be back in good shape. Both Adams and Jarek moved without any signs of injuries but then, SCORPIA didn't like to have people in the field who weren't completely combat-ready.

Alex was a little curious about their reactions. He didn't doubt someone had told them about his promotion, and Marcus didn't disappoint.

"Gregorovich's second in command? You know the life expectancy of people that close to the executive board?" Marcus asked bluntly in lieu of a greeting.

"You know the life expectancy of the average Malagosto graduate?" Alex asked dryly in return. Marcus' lack of respectful address was strangely reassuring. It was something comfortably familiar in a situation that was anything but. Alex was back in SCORPIA uniform, which in itself was always a little unnerving. The goal of the operation and Alex's new responsibilities really didn't help on it, either.

They had time before plans had to be put into motion, but Alex needed that time to figure out a way to stop it, because there was no way he was just letting that sort of thing happen. Familiar company was a welcome distraction.

Marcus' lips twitched slightly. The tension in his body eased. "Point. Congratulations on your promotion?"

"Congratulations on yours?" Alex asked. "You're kind of stuck with me now."

"Worse people to be stuck with." Marcus sounded casual, but Alex caught the underlying meaning. True, Alex was young and inexperienced when it came to that sort of responsibility, but Alex was also the person who had put himself between Marcus and Zeljan Kurst, and Sagitta hadn't forgotten that.

Inexperience could be fixed, and Alex learned fast. A superior that actually cared about the people under his command to that extent – well, Alex got the impression that was a bit of a rarity with SCORPIA.

Alex had spent a month soaking up everything Nile and Crux and Excelsi Security had been willing to teach him. He suspected that Sagitta planned to add to that. They had grown attached, too. Just a little.

The Antonov An-124 that waited for them was large and the cargo hold gapingly empty. The pilots and crew were Russian and used to working with SCORPIA and so asked no questions. Alex and Sagitta had luggage of their own, but most of the space was intended for the cages. It felt a little to Alex like they weren't supposed to be back there, like it wasn't meant for humans. The seats on the plane weren't exactly luxury stuff, but they were good enough that a row of them allowed for a decent bit of sleep, and they all took advantage of that. It was very obviously a plane that had originally been built for military purposes and showed every sign of that.

They had one layover to refuel during the night, but with nothing else to handle, it didn't take long. Depending on the exact weight, Alex knew they would probably have to refuel twice on the way back. He had the paperwork but given the quality of the rest of the intel they had been given, he didn't trust it to be accurate.

They landed in Argentina in the morning some nineteen hours later, a little sore and stiff and not entirely rested, but good enough.

The runway was an isolated one but well taken care of, and they were met there by several lorries, a good amount of security, and a man in what looked like a lab coat. He seemed to be in charge, too.

Alex sighed and gestured for Marcus and Adams to follow him. The rest would watch the plane. Up close, it was obvious that the lorries had been adapted to transport animals, with large air vents and reinforced sides.

The man in the lab coat was already barking orders at his men. The nearest lorry carefully made its way to the plane's cargo hold and the internal crane on-board.

"It will take at least an hour to load everything," the man said without bothering with an introduction. "This is precious cargo."

He turned back to the people by the lorries again. " _Careful!_ " he snapped in what sounded like accented Spanish to Alex. It reminded him a little of Italian, except he could actually understand it.

The man snapped his fingers and one of the people approached. He was around thirty and dressed in khaki trousers and a dark shirt. "Mr Dupre, Mr van Rensburg's assigned vet assistant for the transport."

 _Assistant_ , not actual vet. The doctor, whoever he was, sounded just a little condescending. Dupre himself seemed to know better than to comment. He was probably used to it.

By then, the cover on the first cage had been removed to prepare it for loading and Alex found himself staring. He wasn't the only one. Sagitta had read the mission briefing, too. Suddenly using a combat team and a Malagosto graduate as courier service made a lot more sense.

"Guard dogs?" Marcus asked the doctor flatly. "That's a hyena."

And it was; a spotted hyena from what Alex vaguely remembered from some animal documentary or another. Locked away in a large, transparent cage on its own with air holes, water, and a layer of artificial grass on the bottom, but definitely not the guard dog Alex or Sagitta had expected.

" _Crocuta crocuta_ ," the man replied. "Remarkably trainable creatures with the right methods. I am Doctor Cabrera. You're in charge?"

"No," Alex said. "That would be me."

The doctor blinked and gave Alex a long look. "You're Rider? You're awfully young."

"SCORPIA prefer 'prodigious'," Alex replied, just a little annoyed with the unwanted surprise they had just been given. "Get to the important stuff, doctor. We have a deadline."

Something in Alex's expression must have got the point across, because the man just nodded sharply and snapped another several orders to his men. The refuelling had already started. As more of the covers on the cages were removed, it became clear that the hyenas were up and moving but a lot more sluggish than Alex would have expected. A couple of them didn't look fully grown, but the adults looked … larger than Alex thought hyenas normally were. He obviously wasn't the only one to spot it.

"Kinda big, aren't they?" Adams asked, a little dubious.

"Of course. In the old days, we would have had to use selective breeding. These days, science allows for a number of other ways to improve upon nature's design. Larger, stronger, more intelligent." The doctor sounded pleased with himself. "They're partially sedated for now," he continued. "We want to keep down their stress level during the flight. There is additional sedative in their food."

Genetically engineered guard hyenas. It just kept getting better and better.

"The briefing mentioned nanorobotics," Alex prompted.

"The perfect way to keep them controlled," the doctor agreed. He sounded delighted to get to talk about his work. "Certain signals, keys, send a message to the nanorobots in them that the source is considered safe and part of their clan. Other signals will cause increasing pain if they get within or out of range as specified by the owner. It even keeps them artificially sterile until we wish to breed them. It took some trial and error to get right, of course, but I believe we can all agree the results are well worth it."

An invisible cage. Alex got the point immediately. Rensburg would need no fences for them, no gates, no leashes. A simple signal would keep them where he wanted them, and another would ensure they would make no attempt to attack him or his people.

Trial and error. Alex wondered how many test subjects the doctor had killed before he finally got it right.

An assistant approached the doctor with two metal boxes, a small and a much larger one. The small, sealed one was given to Alex, who put it in his inner pocket. It was about the size of a ring box.

"Mr van Rensburg's key, made to his specifications. I trust you can get it to him safely. As for the rest ..."

The doctor opened the larger box. Inside were rows of plain, smooth metal bracelets in a silvery material in slightly varying sizes. Based on the depth of the box, Alex assume there were several more layers of them underneath. The side had a separate, thin storage area with what looked like weird keys.

"These send the appropriate signal to mark someone as safe. Once locked, it's impossible to open again without a key or deactivating it altogether." The doctor picked up one of them and turned it over, pointing to an slight indent on the outside. "This will send a pain signal and should stop an attack if someone should make the mistake of provoking them. Use it carelessly, and Mr van Rensburg will have your heads. Your arm, Mr Rider."

Alex didn't really want to, but if the alternative was that those guard hyenas saw him as a threat …

He sighed and held out his arm. The doctor closed the bracelet around Alex's wrist before he locked it with one of the odd keys. It was a slightly snug fit, more than tight enough to make it impossible to take off. It wasn't something that could be removed on a whim. Any intruders would need to cut off someone's hand to get to one.

It was not as heavy as expected, and when it was closed, the surface was perfectly smooth but for the one slight indent near the lock. There was nothing it could snag on. Alex flexed his hand and turned his wrist a few times, then sighed again. Sure, why not. He was Yassen Gregorovich's second in command. If nothing else, any attempt to damage him or other important SCORPIA property would bring down a ton of trouble on Rensburg and the doctor both.

"It should be fine," he told Marcus and the others. "If not ..."

He didn't need to finish that sentence. They got the rest of the meaning just fine.

Five minutes later, they had all been equipped with one of the bracelets. Alex spotted one on Dupre's wrist as well and he didn't doubt that Cabrera's people had something similar. That would explain why the hyenas were so docile, because he doubted it was just the mild sedative.

Watching the hyenas get loaded and the cages and various crates strapped down securely reminded Alex of a small anthill with very large ants. Everyone seemed to know their job, and people moved between cages and the lorries and each other without missing a beat. They had clearly had some sort of practice with loading planes like that. He wondered how many other people out there who had bought _enhanced_ pets or guard animals from the same place.

By the end of it, Cabrera handed over a full list of the inventory. The entire thing had taken barely over an hour.

"Mr van Rensburg's full order," he said. "And for god's sake, be careful with them. They're worth significantly more than every one of you lot."

Given that the hyenas were generically engineered, highly trained, and injected with nanotechnology, Alex didn't even doubt it.

At least they weren't responsible for those hyenas' health. Dupre had trained enough with Dr Cabrera to be responsible for their well-being during the flight. Not SCORPIA's problem and one less headache to deal with for Alex.

The refuelling had long since been handled. The inventory list matched what Alex had been given weeks ago. There was no reason to hang around. They were airborne again twenty minutes later, and on their way north-east to refuel before they crossed the Atlantic. The sheer weight of the cages and assorted other cargo cut down drastically on their range. None of the hyenas had been overly happy about take-off, but they had slowly settled down again, and Dupre had gone a quick round to check on them.

Alex had found a seat next to Marcus near one of the largest of the hyenas. They were all female, Alex had learned from the inventory list. Her name was Molai and she was the dominant female of the small clan.

Even groggy and sedated, her eyes were still sharp and intelligent and she watched them carefully. She never settled down completely, attention flickering between her clan members and the humans and the odd surroundings. Up close and larger than any hyena would normally grow, she was an unnerving, intimidating presence.

The plane trembled a little before it levelled out. They had been warned to expect some turbulence, but that wasn't exactly something you could explain to an animal, no matter how intelligent it might be.

Molai bared her teeth, long and sharp, and made a loud whooping sound. Laughing hyenas, Alex remembered. They got their nickname for a reason. Several of the other hyenas stirred and answered with their own whooping, giggling call.

"Fucking creepy." Marcus got up to move further away from the cages.

To Alex, it just sounded sad. They were social animals, he remembered. What sounded like laughter to human ears was a sign that they were stressed and upset.

Locked away on their own, able to see each other but with no way to get any physical comfort, in a loud, alien, confusing environment, injected with nanorobots to keep them controlled and reined in, and genetically manipulated to make them larger, stronger, and more intelligent.

Watching one of the half-grown hyenas curled up in a corner of its cage, Alex felt his heart twist. He had no pity at all for Sayle's huge man o' war, but this was different. There were a lot of similarities between himself and that juvenile hyena, and he was uncomfortably aware of it.

On a whim, Alex got up as well. He grabbed a sandwich and a bottle of water and settled down by the cage with the half-grown hyena. According to the sign on the cage, her name was Toka. She watched him for long seconds. Then she settled down again, as Alex had hoped. She had learned to associate the signal from the bracelet with family.

Alex spent the rest of the flight there, on the hard floor of an Antonov An-124 and in the company of a lonely, sedated hyena that looked about as miserable as Alex felt.

* * *

TheSilverHunt3r: To SCORPIA, who believes Yassen's methods were significantly more brutal than in reality and that Alex – at best – agreed under a combination of lies and duress, it's definitely Stockholm syndrome. The reality in probably somewhere in the middle. Alex made the choice, but he was given no time to consider it in, knew pretty much nothing about what he agreed to, and once they were in Russia, he had no way out. Alex adapted, even to things he would never have gone along with otherwise, because he had no choice. In any other situation, he would have refused and left. Here, Yassen kept Alex isolated until he had managed to wear down some of those inconvenient morals. Alex threw his efforts into stopping SCORPIA, because that was the only way to go along with Yassen's instructions and still stay Alex.

Next: Nobody does hypocrisy like a supervillain.


	44. Democratic Republic of the Congo

They landed in the heart of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the early morning some seventeen hours and two refuelling stops later. By that point Alex had more or less lost track of the date, never mind the time zone. It wasn't the best runway he had ever seen, but it got the job done, and the Antonov didn't have any problems. There was already transport waiting for them; people as well as lorries and what looked like several heavy Land Rover Defenders. According to the official paperwork, the hyenas were part of a breeding programme because of some unique genetic variations that had been found in them.

No bloody wonder, Alex thought, when someone had messed around with their genes to begin with.

The air outside was still and the scents utterly unfamiliar to Alex. The heat and humidity and lush greenery reminded him a little of Santa Catarina. The area beyond the runway was low grass, growing steadily taller. To one side was the distant, hazy silhouette of a city. To the other was only trees. The welcoming committee approached, all of them in the same uniform – dark green trousers and a khaki shirt, and all heavily armed.

Alex nodded for Marcus to keep his men back, just in case. He was pretty sure they had the upper hand if any trouble broke out but being cautious was just a sensible idea.

" _Herr_ Rider?" the man in the front asked. He was tanned and his accent was distinctly German. Surprisingly friendly-sounding, though.

" _Ja._ " It didn't cost Alex anything to respond in German as well, and it was pretty well known that the language was on his list of fluent ones.

The man broke into a smile. "Pleasure to see you. I am Krüger. You have our hyenas?"

"Twelve of them, and the keys that'll mark Mr van Rensburg's people as safe," Alex agreed. "They all handled the flight about as well as expected. We've got their handler as well."

Krüger nodded. " _Herr_ Dupre. Excellent."

A gesture towards the people with the lorries, and the unloading could start. A slight hand signal let Sagitta know the situation was under control. Adams kept a tight hold on the box with the bracelets. If Rensburg wanted his people to have those bracelets, that would be the man's own decision, not SCORPIA's.

Krüger gave Alex an appraising look. "You are young."

Alex shrugged. "SCORPIA doesn't mind."

A nod. "Less time wasted on other training," Krüger agreed. "Better to learn young."

Practical, just like Klaus had been, back at Malagosto. Alex wondered if it was a cultural thing or just coincidence. He didn't even know where Klaus was these days, or if he was even still alive.

The first of the lorries settled by the Antonov, and the crew and Krüger's own men set to work with the first cage. They were just as cautious around the cages as Alex and Sagitta had been. Sure, the cages were undoubtedly meant to hold up to anything those hyenas could throw at them. It was still unnerving to be up close to the adult ones, especially with the sedation wearing off.

A tanker had already appeared from the back of the convoy. By the time the cargo had been unloaded, the plane would be refuelled and ready to take off again. Alex didn't doubt the crew looked forward to a proper break just as much as Alex himself did.

It took two hours to get everything unloaded and prepared for the drive. The Land Rovers were armed and armoured as well, and Alex felt a little better for that. The Antonov was airborne before the convoy of lorries and Land Rovers was even out of sight, and Alex very abruptly felt the heavy responsibility of being Yassen's second in command. That was their ride out, or would have been, if anything had gone wrong. They were stuck with Rensburg now, in foreign territory, and if anything went wrong – big or small – people would look to Alex for a solution.

No pressure. No pressure at _all._

The drive took four hours on roads that ranged from decent to dirt tracks, with a speed that matched the terrain. Rensburg's home, a large, heavily-protected mockery of an expansive safari lodge crossed with a colonial mansion, was on the edge of one of the national parks, in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and pretty much right on the equator. It was an oasis of grass surrounded by rainforest. It was also, Alex had noted, uncomfortably close to the Kivu conflict and the still smouldering, low-level remnants of the Ituri conflict. Tourism was limited, the government unstable, unrest frequent, and Rensburg had the money for bribes as well as guards.

It was a de facto kingdom of his own. Rensburg was old money, with a family fortune built on slave labour and expanded through a number of shady investments over the years, and he clearly didn't have any problem at all with that.

They passed by several towns on the way and numerous villages. Two hours into the drive, Alex had seen more poverty than he ever wanted to. By the time they arrived, the quiet depression of it had settled as a cold, numb knot in his chest. He was uncomfortably aware that just the ballistic shirt that was part of the uniform he wore cost more than most of those family made in a year.

Alex probably hadn't been as good about keeping a blank expression as he should have, because Adams glanced over as they passed by yet another village.

"Could be worse," he said quietly. "SCORPIA's had people in Mogadishu for years."

Good point. It didn't help all that much on Alex's feelings, but it was still a good point.

The knowledge that if Rensburg had his way, those villages probably wouldn't even exist in a year settled dark and heavy and unwanted in his mind.

The road leading through Rensburg's estate wasn't paved but it was a very well kept dirt road and leagues better than some of the tracks they had followed.

The convoy came to a slow halt. A forklift waited in the shade of a large tree and rolled its way along to the lorries. Krüger greeted a couple of people in a language Alex didn't know, but the atmosphere seemed relaxed and with none of the tension he would expect if it had been an ambush.

The doors to the massive white and wooden main house opened and a man in his fifties appeared. He gave Krüger a brief nod, glanced at the line of lorries, and then zeroed in on Alex.

Alex recognised him even before the man reached him. The intel had been thorough. The man was paler than what Alex would expect from someone living right on the equator, with pristine clothes and a neatly trimmed beard. He looked like old money.

"Mr van Rensburg," Alex greeted.

"Mr Rider." Rensburg looked vaguely displeased. "I can't say I approve of SCORPIA's use of child soldiers."

Child soldiers were objectionable but killing thousands of innocent kids in the various villages and towns in the name of revenge was fine? Nobody did hypocrisy like SCORPIA's clients.

"More like child assassin, sir. Malagosto doesn't train soldiers. If it helps, MI6 conscripted me in the first place," Alex offered, not quite helpfully. The man had his file already, Yassen had said as much. It wasn't like it was much of a secret. "SCORPIA just gave me a way out. The fact that they pay me and don't use blackmail to get their way is really just a bonus."

Rensburg didn't look convinced. "Perhaps."

Alex ignored it and brought out the small box he had been given by the doctor. A gesture at Adams summoned him as well. "Your key from Doctor Cabrera, made to your specifications."

Rensburg accepted the box. He opened it and brought out a silvery metallic ring with a line of diamonds. Alex wasn't even surprised. Rensburg slipped it on, on the opposite hand of what seemed to be his wedding ring. It was a perfect fit. At that sort of price, Alex supposed it had better be.

"Excellent. The bracelets?"

Adams held out the box. Rensburg nodded to one of his assistants who picked it up. "Your arm, Mr Rider."

It wasn't a request. Alex held out his arm with the bracelet, because there really wasn't anything else the man might be interested in, and Rensburg turned it over, looking at the subtle piece of technology. Finally he let go again.

"Quite a remarkable piece of craftsmanship. Any experiences with it?"

"Your … cargo was kept mostly sedated but they still seemed to be pretty calm about the flight," Alex replied. "They didn't like the turbulence, but nobody does."

"Any physical effects from wearing it?"

"None so far. Doctor Cabrera wore one as well." Of course, that could have been a custom-made one but the man had no reason to want to upset a client with flawed merchandise.

A slow nod. Rensburg gestured to his assistant. "Distribute them. Lock up the rest. I want a full list of those given one, and that goes for you men as well, Mr Rider."

"Yes, sir." A slight gesture to Adams had that issue under control.

Only when everyone who had any business in Rensburg's large estate had been equipped with bracelets were the cages opened. Slowly, Alex noticed, one at a time, starting with the largest of Rensburg's new guard dogs. It was well into the evening by then but the estate was brightly lit for the occasion and Rensburg was very clear that he didn't want to keep the hyenas in their cages for the night.

Everyone froze the moment the first cage was opened. Nobody spoke or even moved as dark paws took a few cautious steps outside and unnaturally intelligent eyes took in their surroundings.

Molai sniffed at the closest of Rensburg's people and made a half bark, half laughing sound. Then she ignored the man and continued her exploration. Someone drew a slow, relieved breath. Alex didn't blame them. She had been intimidating in her cage. Outside of it, with nothing between lethal teeth and fragile skin … if the bracelets failed, it would be a bloodbath on both sides, and Alex knew it.

With one successful experience, the rest were easier to handle. Alex still felt unnerved, surrounded by curious, intelligent predators, and he obviously wasn't the only one. Everyone from Sagitta looked ready to pull a gun at the first sign of trouble, and so did a number of Rensburg's guards. Alex's hand rested less than an inch from his own sidearm. No one was about to do anything stupid and actually pull a weapon with Rensburg there, and absolutely no one wanted to deal with the consequences if they did harm one of the man's expensive new pets on accident, but nobody was about to let down their guard, either.

Rensburg had been vague on how wide of a range the hyenas were allowed to roam. Alex could only assume the house was defended but that was about it.

The hyenas spent a good while examining their new home and their old cages, winding between the unmoving people around them, and occasionally baring their teeth or making a range of sounds. Communicating, Alex realised. Several of them passed close enough that his hand brushed against their fur and felt the shifting muscles beneath.

Finally Molai whooped sharply and the small clan left, into the darkness of the grass beyond the estate.

Someone drew a relieved breath. Tense muscles loosened. Clenched fists eased. Alex could feel his own tension slowly fade now that there wasn't a lethal predator within arm's reach.

He hoped to hell the door to his bedroom would have a lock.

People started moving again. Rensburg's people moved the cages away to storage. The man himself gestured for Alex and Sagitta to follow him.

"Now, Mr Rider. You and your men's accommodations and some basic rules of politeness." The fact that he didn't expect any of them to have anything in the way of good manners wasn't spoken out loud but hung plainly in the air. "I hold you responsible for their behaviour, of course. The staff accommodations are in a separate building -"

Alex didn't sigh, though he was tempted. He forced himself to listen instead. It would be useful information. First light of day, they would start on their actual job and go through Rensburg's security, from one end of the estate and to the other. It would take days, it was a large estate, but at least it would keep them mostly clear of Rensburg.

Somehow, Alex didn't think Sagitta would mind.

* * *

Yassen arrived by helicopter three days later. Alex and Sagitta were stationed at Rensburg's home as additional security, but Yassen had rented a large home for the duration of the operation, somewhere with no neighbours, good security, and plenty of room for a helicopter to land undisturbed. He had also brought a combat team with him to guard that temporary base. They went by Ussuri for the operation. Alex didn't know them, but a check of their file revealed one of those SCORPIA teams that definitely wasn't safe around civilians. He wasn't surprised Yassen would want someone like that as security for his own temporary home.

Yassen could have stayed away and left things in Alex's hands, but Yassen Gregorovich was not the type of person to sit idle. Operation Tisiphone was his, and he intended to watch over every step of it. He had received daily reports from Alex but that wasn't the same as being there in person.

Alex met him by the helicopter, SCORPIA's part of security left in Marcus' hands. Yassen exchanged a few words with the pilot, then got out. The engine stopped. The rotor came to a slow halt. The world was reduced to silence, the usual animal sounds frightened away by the helicopter.

Alex noticed the familiar, silvery bracelet around Yassen's wrist, one of the first things he looked for. He didn't doubt Yassen was more than capable of handling Rensburg's pets if they became a problem, but the fallout wouldn't be pretty.

For a brief while, there was no one there but Alex and Yassen.

"Orion," Yassen greeted. He looked vaguely satisfied. Alex assumed he had done an all right job, then.

"Sir," he replied.

" _Status?_ " Yassen asked and switched to Russian. In case anyone was watching, Alex assumed.

Alex had given him anything of importance in the daily reports, but Yassen wanted more than that. The things Alex wasn't quite willing to put into writing.

" _The client is an entitled waste of space._ "

" _They tend to be,_ " Yassen agreed. Alex didn't doubt that after that long in SCORPIA's employ, he was an expert on that.

" _I think he plans to feed any intruders to his pet hyenas._ "

Yassen didn't even blink. Alex supposed that compared to Sayle's man o' war, hyenas were almost mundane for a would-be supervillain. " _Not terribly efficient in removing evidence but I suppose it would cut down on feeding costs._ "

Alex hesitated. " _... I don't like this_ ," he admitted.

He had thought about it for a long time. Yassen hadn't been surprised when Alex had tried to stop Graff's drug. He had to know Alex would have problems now, too. If Yassen suspected, anyway … Alex had thought about it and decided to take a gamble. Santa Catarina had been a complete failure. He didn't have the first idea of how to stop Rensburg's plan, either.

Yassen had no incentive to help him, no reason to wish to ruin his own operation, but it wasn't like Alex had much left to lose. Speak the truth between the two of them and let Yassen use that knowledge as he wished.

The look in Yassen's eyes sharpened slightly. " _Later,_ " he said, just as two of Rensburg's men appeared.

Alex nodded. The message had been received, at least.

Yassen switched to English again to greet the two guards and followed them inside Rensburg's home and the maze of hallways to the library, Alex two steps behind him. The room was light and airy, with a view of the expansive grounds. It was equal parts library, living room, and office. Like the rest of the house, it had no air conditioning but two large, wooden fans spun quietly on the ceiling instead.

Alex didn't like the place. Not the library that Rensburg favoured, and not the rest of the house. Like the Graffs' home, it was too exposed, too focused on appearance and not on security. At least Yu had upgraded his security to match, for all the good it had done against someone with inside information. If Alex had wanted to target Rensburg, he wouldn't have needed inside information at all. The staff accommodations were at least a bit better, built to be practical rather than pretty. Alex still didn't like those, either.

Rensburg's own guards, mostly African and former military, were competent and easy to get along with. They all had a job to do. The staff in the house was close to invisible. Rensburg seemed to follow the old belief that servants shouldn't be seen or heard, and the staff acted accordingly. To someone trained as an assassin and bodyguard both, it was creepy and uncomfortable; the perfect breeding ground for paranoia.

Alex didn't doubt Yassen kept a close eye on everything as they moved through the house. It was useful to know the layout of a place like that. Just in case.

Like a number of rooms in the house, the library carried reminders of Rensburg's lost wife and son. Family photos, ranging from candid and to the stiff, stilted formality of Christmas cards and a few school photos. A child's drawings. Several sketches of what looked like a younger Rensburg and his son, both with Rensburg's wife's name in the corner. Rensburg's son had only been eight years old when he had been killed, and Alex was painfully reminded of that every time he saw those photos. He didn't like Rensburg and he hated the man's plan, but the silent reminders of his lost family made the man uncomfortably human.

"Mr Gregorovich." Rensburg stood from behind his favourite table, a large, wooden monstrosity, to greet Yassen.

"Mr van Rensburg." The table was set for two, with tea and coffee, and Yassen settled easily. Alex found a spot with a decent view of the room to the left of Yassen, able to keep an eye on everything.

Rensburg glanced at him and the very visible weapons he carried, and then back at Yassen.

"Does SCORPIA make a habit of using child soldiers?" he asked, still not entirely happy about Alex's presence, and obviously not caring if Alex knew or not. Alex wasn't sure if it was his age, his level of experience, or just that Rensburg didn't trust a teenager, and he didn't care to ask. He wasn't even surprised the man brought it up at the first chance he got. It obviously bothered him.

Yassen looked utterly unconcerned. "Only the exceptional ones. Alex was always an exception to the rules. SCORPIA does not believe in wasting potential. Are you displeased with his performance?"

Only the fact that Alex knew Yassen so well let him pick up on the undercurrent of annoyance and the lingering threat in the question. Doubting Alex's abilities was doubting the people who had trained him. Not just Yassen himself, but Ian Rider and Malagosto's instructors. All of them some of the best in their field.

"I am displeased by the fact that your organisation sends children to do their work. He should be in school, not working as a killer. His competence hardly makes the situation any better. How old was he when SCORPIA claimed him?"

"Fourteen," Yassen responded easily. "He was always an exceptional child, as MI6 can attest to. SCORPIA merely offered him a choice."

"Of Scylla and Charybdis? I assure you, Mr Gregorovich, that I find their actions just as reprehensible as yours."

A slight shrug. "You hired SCORPIA, Mr van Rensburg. Consider him a younger adult, if it eases your conscience. He graduated Malagosto on the same terms as an adult and the intelligence community considers him such as well."

Sometimes Alex got the distinct impression that now that his innocent schoolboy looks were rapidly growing a lot less harmless and innocent, SCORPIA planned to use most people's natural unease around a killer his age to their advantage instead. He could still pass for a normal teenager if he tried to, but his presence was quite useful for visible, unnerving intimidation, too. Yu had proven as much.

A glance at Alex brought him back into the conversation, Rensburg's moral objections clearly dismissed for now. "Alex, your general impression?"

"Right now, it's safety through anonymity," Alex said bluntly, summarising the detailed report he had already sent to Yassen. "The moment someone decides to take a little too much interest in this place, it'll be a lost cause. Normal criminals that got a little too overconfident won't be a problem, but if someone sends a team of special forces, this place won't last. Security is good but not meant to stand up to that. The guards are decent but nowhere near those standards, and a properly trained special forces soldier won't freeze when faced with those hyenas."

Yassen nodded slowly. He knew, but he wanted the reminder for their client. Rensburg looked a little pained but didn't argue. It wasn't like Alex had been quiet about his opinion. It would be different if they had more people, but Rensburg had refused. He didn't trust that many strangers at his home or with the bracelets that controlled those hyenas, and nothing Alex had said had changed his mind. Maybe Yassen would have better luck, but Alex doubted it.

"Could you hold the estate with Sagitta in case of an actual attack?"

"No, sir." Alex didn't even hesitate. He had already considered that, too, and Marcus agreed with his assessment. "We could slow them down and buy enough time to allow for an escape if a helicopter was available, but that's all. To actually hold something this size and in this location, I would need a much better security set-up and another three or four combat teams to have a chance."

Another slight nod. "We will ensure no one has reason to get suspicious, then. Focus on mines well away from here. Ground zero of an outbreak will draw unwanted attention."

Unease settled in Alex again, the reminder of Rensburg's plan and his own complete lack of ideas of what to do about it. Do nothing, let the plan go through, and maybe be in a position later to take down all of SCORPIA. Stop it, cause the operation to fail, and be killed for his failure. The board would not be forgiving twice. Rensburg would be stopped, but no one would be around to stop the next madman.

… Or stop Rensburg and use every last bit of SCORPIA intel he could get his hands on to bargain with an intelligence agency. They might be able to take down a good part of SCORPIA, though far from all, and Alex might be able to bargain for his own safety and live the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. SCORPIA would learn of his treason, there was no way they wouldn't.

None of the options were good ones and Alex knew it.

Yassen had what he needed from Alex and focused on Rensburg instead. With Alex dismissed from the conversation again, the two of them got down to details. The plan as it stood, any recent changes, any complications that had appeared and possible solutions, and Alex listened silently as the minutes ticked on and turned to hours.

Rensburg was a thorough man when it came to the investment he had made in hiring SCORPIA and he took a clear interest in the details of the plan.

It was almost two hours later before Yassen got up again. Rensburg shook his hand, clearly pleased with how things were going.

A guard reappeared to followed them out of the house but left them alone once they were outside, leaving Yassen's security in Alex's hands. Alex didn't mind. He doubted Yassen did, either. The man hated having unnecessary people around.

Several of the hyenas had approached the house by the time Yassen left. He stopped on the way to the helicopter to get his first good look at Rensburg's unusual guard dogs.

"There have been no issues with their behaviour?" Yassen asked.

"None." Alex hesitated. "I'm not sure how they normally behave in the wild, but they were pretty brutal when they got some live cattle to feed on. It looked like they enjoyed the hunt. If that's the way they'll react to intruders, we have a big problem if those bracelets fail."

Yassen watched them thoughtfully. "They are unusually intelligent," he conceded. "Their creator may have manipulated more than merely their size and intelligence."

They watched in silence as two of the hyenas circled one of the guards. The man stood completely still. He didn't dare move.

"Some people have managed to get used to them," Alex continued. "But the ones that don't … I think they like to unnerve them."

"Prove their dominance in a way that won't get them punished, perhaps," Yassen mused.

That sounded reasonable to Alex. "The big one is Molai," he said. "The dominant female of the clan."

Dominant female and stone-cold killer, he didn't need to say. The way she moved left little doubt that she was a lethal predator. A properly aimed bullet would still take her down, but she was fast and vicious. Not too many people would be able to react fast enough to an attack to have time to shoot, much let manage a lethal shot.

The hyenas moved on. The guard finally relaxed again, clearly rattled. Yassen just looked faintly amused.

"Keep me updated," he said and continued towards the helicopter.

"Yes, sir."

Yassen glanced at him. "Rensburg's son would have been about your age by now."

Alex had known on some level but it wasn't until then that the connection actually clicked. Rensburg's objections to his presence. Not because he necessarily doubted Alex's qualifications but because Alex was a living reminder of the son he had lost. They looked nothing alike but they would have been the same age, and seeing Alex around, not in school but in the service of a cold-blooded terrorist organisation – Rensburg could do nothing to bring his own son back, but maybe some small part of him objected to seeing a child treated like that. The fatalities from his virus would be merely statistics, justified deaths in Rensburg's twisted logic. Alex was a living, breathing human being.

Alex wasn't sure what to say to that, so he settled for the safe option.

"... Yes, sir."

" _As for your other concerns,_ " Yassen said, slipping into Russian, " _we will discuss it later._ "

Discuss it. That sounded vaguely ominous, not that Alex had really expected anything else. Yassen knew he wasn't happy with the operation, and he knew what had happened last time Alex was that unhappy with an assignment. The only difference was that this time Alex had been perfectly honest about it. If Yassen was going to decide he was unreliable because of that, he would have done it after Santa Catarina.

" _Yes, sir._ " Perfectly neutral.

Another flicker of faint amusement crossed Yassen's face.

" _Later,_ " he repeated.

That was one good thing about being busy, Alex decided as Yassen got into the helicopter and the engine came to life again. He would be entirely too buried in work to spend all that much time wondering just what Yassen had in mind.

* * *

Tanukichibi: Nah, Alex made a friend of sorts, but that's about it. He was lonely and miserable, she looked lonely and miserable, and he figured they might as well be miserable together. She's still very much a deadly predator and in no way, shape, or form a tame animal.

Next: Alex didn't expect 'reconnaissance mission' to mean 'wait in the car'. He can't say he really minds, though.


	45. Diamonds Are Forever

The virus was due to arrive a week later. Alex and Sagitta spent the time doing reconnaissance and getting Rensburg's security up to … if not proper standards, then something they could sleep a little easier with. The hyenas had a surprisingly large territory to roam but several of them seemed to find the area around house and the humans there endlessly interesting. Or possibly entertaining, Alex wasn't sure. Several of the guards still didn't care for their presence in the least, and the hyenas knew it. They were also intelligent enough to have worked out that they wouldn't be punished for curiosity, because they had absolutely no fear about approaching anyone on the estate.

One of the two half-grown cubs took to following Alex around occasionally when he worked. Her name was Toka and he recognised her as the one he had kept company on the flight from Argentina. She was usually followed by her mother, probably to keep an eye on her.

"You've got a fan," Adams commented once, surrounded by bits and pieces of one of Rensburg's security systems that really didn't like the rain or the humidity.

Alex scratched Toka's throat and neck like he had learned she liked, her fur thick and coarse under his hands, and she made a low, pleased growl in return.

She wasn't an adult yet and she was already huge. Her teeth clearly meant business and she had no problem tearing into whatever slab of meat she got fed. Alex still gave her part of his lunch if she happened to be there. He got attached. He knew he shouldn't, Yassen had warned him repeatedly, but he couldn't help it, and she reminded him of himself.

The members of Sagitta weren't the only ones who noticed, either.

"Toka has taken a liking to you," Rensburg said.

Alex shrugged a little, not sure what to say. "I spent a while next to her on the flight, sir. Maybe she remembers. Maybe she thinks we're interesting. Maybe she just likes the bracelet."

Or maybe she understood on some level that they were around the same age, relatively speaking. Close to adulthood but still not entirely there. The only other cub in the clan was younger than her.

Either way, he didn't mind in the least. She was good company. Alex had never been around big dogs before, but he could see the appeal now. Something big and social, something to keep you company that wouldn't ask awkward questions or make you wonder if they were trustworthy. So maybe she was a little dangerous. He had survived three months at Malagosto; he was pretty sure he could handle her.

"Perhaps," Rensburg agreed, although he didn't sound entirely convinced. Then again, the man also had all sorts of issues with Alex's age, so it could just as easily have been general displeasure about Alex's presence.

Alex just shrugged and ignored it.

With security brought up to slightly more acceptable levels – if they wanted more, they would need to get entirely new equipment delivered – Alex focused on other tasks.

They had intel on a number of mines, large and small, within a huge area. Enough intel to spot the ones that could be of interest, but not enough to be useful. The quality was too low, with too many things missing. Someone had to do proper reconnaissance. Alex knew perfectly well that meant himself and Sagitta. Yassen was busy with other things, and Alex didn't doubt that the logistics of transporting a lethal virus halfway around the world and across a number of borders were … touchy at best.

Alex and Sagitta had narrowed it down to two suitable locations, both of them small, illegal diamond mines, but they would need a better look. Together with Krüger, who was in charge of most practical issues on Rensburg's estate, they worked out a plan of attack. That plan, of course, came with a few complications.

The pick-up truck that Krüger had arranged for was a used Toyota Hilux, old enough to blend in with local traffic but still dependable. Hidden under a tarp in the back were three lean, powerful motorcycles, meant for rough terrain and artfully dirtied until they would be able to blend in decently with the rainforest. They would drive most of the way in the pick-up, continue on motorcycle on the smaller tracks before they got too close, and finally cross the last stretch to the mine by foot.

And there was the first complication.

"Can you drive one of those?" Marcus asked him when they got their first look at the motorcycles.

"Not well enough for this," Alex admitted. He could probably manage on a nice, flat surface. On narrow, uneven, muddy tracks in the rainforest, he would be a downright liability.

Marcus nodded. "Takes practice. One for Krüger, we'll need a local guide. Keep Adams on the estate in case of trouble, he wouldn't know what to do with a motorcycle if it ran him over."

"You?" Alex asked.

Marcus made a low hum. "I'm a bit out of practice, but give me a day to play around with it and it should be fine. Shale drives those things for fun, that'll make three of us. You to guard the pick-up truck, that'll make four. Always looks less suspicious with a kid around. I'd say bring Mace, too. He's a good driver, he can help guard it, and it could be handy with a medic."

On mud tracks in the rainforest, in unfamiliar territory – they wouldn't even need to get enemies involved to need medical attention. Alex nodded. He trusted Marcus' judgement, just like he would have to trust their reconnaissance of the mines. It would be crowded with five people and gear. The back seats were modified to fit three people but were really meant for two, but they would just have to deal.

"You're fluent in French?" Marcus asked.

"Yeah."

A slow nod. "Should work if you need to communicate with the locals for any reason, then. Mace doesn't, so that'll be your headache."

Five people, then. Three to do the reconnaissance, two of which Alex actually trusted. Krüger wasn't untrustworthy, but Alex had learned by now to be suspicious of anyone not one of their own people until proven otherwise. It would be crowded, and it would take a solid day for each of those mines, and more if – when – they would need to come back for more intel. The closest would be a four hour drive, followed by an hour combined of motorcycle and on foot, and then the actual time spent doing reconnaissance. With another five hours total on the way back as well, they were easily looking at a sixteen hour day and likely more. The second, more than an hour further away … Alex would be surprised if that was less than twenty hours. Even then, it was still easier to drive through the night than find a place to sleep.

"Any orders about additional security for the house while we're gone?" Marcus asked.

Alex's expression hardened. "The client doesn't want any. Y- Mr Gregorovich asked. He doesn't trust outsiders and he wants as few people as possible familiar with his home and the hyenas. He knows we can't hold this place with the full team, never mind with half on recon, but he refuses to accept more people. Later, when the operation starts proper, maybe, but not now. He'll put up with us, but that's it."

Part of Alex knew this was a good thing, a potential weakness that might eventually be exploited to spoil his plan. Paranoia and overconfidence, both dangerous for security. A much larger part of Alex also knew that the client's distrustfulness put Sagitta at risk, potentially in a situation against an overwhelming enemy force, and he didn't like that one bit. The client had the final say, though, and nothing Alex did would change that.

Marcus didn't look much happier about it, but he didn't argue. There wasn't anything he could do about it, either.

They left well before dawn, dressed as locals and with their weapons carefully concealed. Alex had been given his last rabies shot and the second dose of the cholera vaccine the evening before, just in case, and they had plenty of supplies along as well, from field rations and clean water to extra fuel. Even then, Alex was not looking forward to the drive. He had grown a little too used to life in comfortable surroundings and he knew it.

The estate was mostly silent. Only the night shift was up and moving as usual. Adams appeared to see them off, though, and as did two of the hyenas.

Krüger smiled. Alex got the distinct impression the man genuinely loved the animals. "They're curious. We are not the usual people awake at this time."

One of them pulled on the tarp until Krüger shooed her off. The other reluctantly followed along.

Alex had the brief thought of pulling rank to avoid the uncomfortable middle seat in the back, then sighed as common sense reluctantly took over. He had grown but he still didn't have the bulk of someone like Marcus. He would have been seriously tempted, anyway, but not with Sagitta. He knew them too well. Liked them too much.

Marcus sent him a brief smile as Alex climbed into the back of the pick-up truck without argument. The acknowledgement made the discomfort a little easier to deal with. It wasn't comfortable in the back with three of them there, but it wasn't as bad as he expected. He was reminded of his weeks on the streets on Miami and decided he had definitely tried worse.

In the end, Alex managed to sleep most of the way. He wasn't the only one. He woke up a few times, if the road got too rough and once when they spent a while sitting idle because someone else up ahead had managed to get stuck from a combination of heavy mud and bad headlights, and while Sagitta's members were used to waking up abruptly, Alex wasn't the only one who looked a bit groggy when it happened.

Mace was behind the wheel and would handle the pick-up truck on the way home as well. He would nap while Alex guarded it and the rest were off handling reconnaissance. While the roads definitely weren't the best, he did a good job, and Alex was grateful for the heavy-duty vehicle.

The sun rose. Almost on top of the equator, dawn came fast. The world turned from deep darkness and the glimpse of the occasional stars above and to the bright green of daytime. Eventually they stopped at the side of the road, a good bit away from the narrow dirt track they needed to follow the rest of the way. Traffic had died down as they left the main road.

Marcus, Shale, and Krüger got the motorcycles ready. Several additional weapons joined the ones they already carried, and Alex and Mace brought some back inside as well.

"I figure six or seven hours," Marcus said. "We'll stay in touch."

Alex nodded. The motorcycles roared to life and the trio set off, heading back down the road towards the trail leading into the rainforest. The sound faded. Died. With the Hilux's engine turned off as well, the world around them was silent. It wouldn't last long, Alex knew. Just long enough for the local animals to decide any threat had passed.

"Let's grab some breakfast," Mace said. "I'm starved."

That was the best idea Alex had heard all morning.

* * *

Alex spent three hours keeping an eye on everything on his own. Mace had gone to sleep in the back row of seats, the surface just long and flat enough that he could curl up and be comfortable. Occasionally someone would pass by – pick-up trucks, cars, scooters, the rare lorry – but mostly it was quiet. He would wake Mace up if something happened, but by the time the man woke up on his own, Alex had spent most of the time watching the forest, with the occasional glance in the mirrors.

Twice someone had stopped to ask if they needed help. Alex had gone with their prepared excuse – they were travelling with friends in another car that had managed to wreck a tyre, and they were waiting for them now – but Mace had slept through both of the conversations, trusting Alex to let him know if something was wrong.

Marcus had checked in occasionally, just brief comments to let them know things were going according to plan.

Breakfast had been a large stack of sandwiches and the daily antimalarial tablet. Lunch was a military field ration. Alex didn't care, as long as it was food. Half an hour and some trading back and forth of candy and snacks later, Alex and Mace had both settled down to watch the rainforest and the rain that had started not long after noon. It was strangely soothing, the sound of rain on the roof. Alex doubted the Marcus and the other two agreed with that assessment, stuck outside in the middle of it.

"Any side effects to your antimalarial meds?" Mace asked. "Your appetite looks fine, you're drinking normally, you haven't been throwing up, and I haven't heard you complain of nausea or headaches."

Alex took a moment to actually consider the question. "Not that I've noticed?" he offered. He'd felt pretty sick to his stomach the one time he'd had the tablet between meals, but that was all. He had learned his lesson and had it with breakfast ever since. There had been nothing else bad enough that he had even noticed it.

Which, really, was good enough in his book. Mace seemed to agree. "Didn't think so, either. Doesn't hurt to ask." He glanced at Alex. "How much medical training do they give you at Malagosto?"

Memories of graphic textbooks and detailed lectures, of diagrams and drawings and photos -

Alex swallowed. "Enough."

"For interrogation purposes, then?"

"And so we'd be able to patch up ourselves a little," Alex admitted. "Enough to get to somewhere safe. Why?"

Mace shrugged. "Something to pass the time. All right, then. Knife wound in your lower left side. What's the damage? What do you do?"

"Did it hit anything vital?"

"You tell me."

Alex paused, getting drawn into the game despite himself. "What sort of knife? How deep did it go?"

"Standard combat, not serrated, and let's say four inches. You didn't have body armour on but you got lucky."

It felt suspiciously like a test. As Mace started to interrogate him on the hypothetical injury and its treatment, slowly drifting from one imaginary situation to the next, Alex found that he really didn't mind.

* * *

By the time their three companions returned well into the afternoon, the test had turned into actual lessons. Malagosto didn't exactly go in depth with the medical things – it was more a side effect of the torture and interrogation lessons and whatever medical knowledge they might need to keep themselves alive on a job – but it was apparently enough for Mace to work with. Unlike Dr Three, Mace didn't have a medical degree or anywhere near that level of training, but he also didn't use it mainly to take people apart rather than fix them up. Everything considered, Alex preferred Mace's lessons.

The trio had been gone for close to eight hours, but Marcus returned with a full notebook and hundreds of photos they would need to go through. Plenty to give them a good idea of the place. Any lingering annoyance Alex might have felt from being told to stay and guard the pick-up vanished entirely when he saw what sort of state they returned in. The three of them were absolutely filthy, covered in mud, plant sap, and god knew what else, and even with a clean change of clothes, they absolutely reeked. The motorcycles weren't much better and would need a good cleaning before the second mission, too.

On second thought, Alex was quite all right keeping Mace company.

By the time they were back at Rensburg's estate, it was well into the evening. At least they would take a day of rest before scouting the other mine. Even further away than the first, Alex was well aware they would be gone from early morning and well into the night for that one. And once Yassen decided on a mine as the starting point of the virus … Alex expected they would probably spend a week or more of additional reconnaissance on it.

Marcus handled the preliminary notes. Alex forwarded them to Yassen along with the photos and his own daily report, mostly based on Adams' comments for the day. He caught up on anything that had happened on the estate, had a quick dinner and shower, and collapsed in bed well after midnight.

The only advantage to exhaustion was the complete lack of dreams. Alex woke up tired, but it was the exhaustion of hard work and not nightmares.

The pick-up truck had changed licence plates over the course of the night. So had the motorcycles. Krüger looked pleased, so Alex suspected he was the behind that particular bit of added security.

"An additional precaution," Krüger said when Alex asked, and he sounded just as pleased with himself as he looked. "No one should have noticed but it never hurts to be sure."

A sensible bit of caution. Yassen had taught Alex to appreciate that sort of thing. He hadn't considered it himself, but he felt better now that it had been handled.

Alex spent the day catching up on work. He helped Marcus type up the complete notes and prepare a proper file on the mine for Yassen. He did his workout and was surprised to find how much he had missed it after losing out on it the day before. He enjoyed not being stuck in a cramped pick-up truck and drinking lukewarm water.

He kept himself busy, did his work, and tried not to think about the photos from the mine or the detailed notes from Marcus.

 _Illegal operation, no government presence, little organised security, untrained workers. Potential targets are predominantly male, pre-teens to mid-thirties; initial contamination would be accomplished with little effort through one of several water sources -_

The final report was cold and clinical, like Yassen expected. It didn't make it any less grim to read for Alex.

For the first reconnaissance mission, they had left at four in the morning. For the second mine, further away and somewhat bigger, they would need to leave by three. Alex went to bed as early as he could. Even then, his alarm went off entirely too soon.

Marcus, Shale, and Mace looked obnoxiously awake for that early. Krüger, like Alex, looked somewhat less pleased to be up. Adams showed up to see them off again, but he didn't look much more awake than Alex felt. He could go straight back to bed, too, for another three hours. The bastard.

Alex slept most of the drive again. Like the day before, it wasn't exactly a comfortable place to sleep and he woke up with a crick in his neck and a bit of a sore back, but at least it made the drive shorter. He had shamelessly used Shale as a pillow. The sniper himself was asleep for most of it, anyway, so it wasn't like he was going to argue.

They came to a halt slightly after eight and the motorcycles came out again.

"Based on the other place, it'll probably be nine or ten hours before we're back," Marcus warned them.

"Sunset is at six," Krüger reminded him. "We will want to be back before then, or we stay the night where we are. Driving in darkness, it will be a miracle to get back without an accident."

"Ten hours at the most, then," Marcus conceded. "We'll stay in touch."

Alex watched them take off. A quick breakfast later, and Mace curled up on the back seats again to sleep. Alex wished he could do the same.

Their surroundings looked much the same as they had near the first mine. He knew they were a long way apart, but the rainforest looked the same. The road was a little more uneven, and the traffic a little more frequent, but mostly it looked the same.

Alex spent his time watching the world outside. Guarding the pick-up truck, if anyone should decide to try anything.

As with the first mine, all he saw was the lush green of the rainforest, the brown of the road, and normal life around them. People in cars or on scooter. Lorries carrying cargo – timber and machinery; scrap metal and spare parts, road materials and grains and fruit – and even what looked like a couple of small, local buses; little more than converted vans.

Normal people going about their normal lives, and Rensburg wanted to kill them for something a handful of criminals had done years ago.

 _We will discuss it later,_ Yassen had said, but Alex didn't know what was left to discuss. This was Yassen's first operation as a member of the executive board and he wouldn't let it fail. Alex had told him, anyway, because it wasn't like he had much left to lose, but he didn't know what he actually expected Yassen to do.

Pull him from the operation? He would have done that long before, then. Repeat the familiar lesson that personal opinions didn't matter, only the client's money did? But Yassen had to know that lesson was mostly useless with Alex.

Even if Alex wanted to act, there wasn't much he could do before the virus arrived. There was no proof that Rensburg was up to mass murder. Yassen was a cautious man, and SCORPIA valued their clients' privacy. Once it was there …

… Alex didn't know.

It was a long, lonely four hours before Mace woke up, right in time for lunch. Alex's field ration tasted bland, the candy too sweet and the beverage mixes too much like chemicals, or maybe it was just his mood playing tricks on him. He suspected the latter.

He didn't hide it as well as he should have, either, because Mace glanced over at him. "You okay?"

Alex considered the question and wondered how much he could actually say. Eventually he shrugged a little awkwardly. "I don't like it. Any of this. I know I shouldn't care as long as the client pays, but I don't like it."

"Potentially killing hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of innocents in some deranged bid for revenge for something done by people likely long since dead and buried?" Mace said quietly. "I don't think anyone would."

Except for the executive board, who not only didn't care but would actively encourage it for the right payment. And now Yassen was one of them, and Alex tied to them through his new position. It was not a nice thought.

There wasn't much he could say to that, either. Maybe it had been a risky thing to bring up in the first place, but it had helped to say it out loud to someone other than Yassen. Just a little.

Sagitta went along with it because that was what they got paid for, just like Alex, but it was nice to know he wasn't the only one with some issues about their assignment. It didn't change things one way or the other, but it was … nice.

They sat in silence for a while, finishing up the last of their lunch. Then Mace glanced at him.

"Where did we get to last time?"

"Intramuscular injections," Alex said immediately.

"You paid attention." Mace sounded pleased. "Right, then. The deltoid muscle is easy, but the one you want to remember is the ventrogluteal site. That's the hip. It'll most likely be useful for you for sedatives or antibiotics -"

Alex still felt restless; helpless and hopeless and tired all in one, but he made himself focus on the lesson and Mace's voice as it flowed over him. Maybe life wasn't what he wanted, maybe he was in way over his head, but for a few hours he could forget that and just focus on the medical lessons that for once weren't intended to be used to torture or kill.

* * *

The sun had long since vanished behind the dense forest, and twilight was inching closer at a disturbing pace by the time the trio finally reappeared. It would be a five hour drive back, mostly in complete darkness but for the headlights, but it was still better than having to stay the night. They would be back late, but there would be actual beds waiting for them.

They had a quick dinner in the pick-up truck before they left, and Alex didn't even try to stay awake. He let the motions of the truck and the sound of the engine lull him to sleep, and he only woke up when they reached Rensburg's lands again.

Alex sent Yassen a quick update, got a report on the day from Adams, and collapsed in bed well after midnight. He had slept in the Hilux, but it hadn't exactly been great sleep.

He was woken up again before dawn by banging on the door, followed by Marcus' voice.

" _The hyenas caught someone! Doesn't look like an attack; Krüger's outside right now."_

Alex's mind ran through the possibilities in less than a second – would-be robbers, insurgents, the first and only warning of a full-scale attack, some poor soul who had managed to get lost in the entirely wrong place – and then shook them out of his head again.

Guessing would do nothing.

He was dressed within three minutes; out the door and outside the large house within five. As Marcus had said, Krüger was already there.

"News?" Alex asked. He already had a gun in his hand as well an assault rifle slung over his shoulder. Yassen would probably be pleased if he knew.

"Poachers," Krüger said. "Some will try to take a shortcut through our lands occasionally. We can track the clan, and I have people there now. They just confirmed it."

Located on the edge of a national park, Alex supposed he should have expected it. It still did nothing for the uneasy feeling. "And?"

Krüger smiled sharply. "Doctor Cabrera did an excellent job. Our clan knows to see guns and rifles as a threat and they are skilled hunters. The poachers had no chance to aim. Our girls did well."

Dead, then. Hunted down the same way the live cattle had been and with only slightly more chance of escape. Alex felt the roiling sense of nausea as the meaning sunk in. He had been half joking when he told Yassen that he suspected Rensburg would feed unwanted visitors to the hyenas. The joke seemed a lot less funny now.

"They will eat well," Krüger continued, "and we will save a cow for another day. Everyone wins."

Except the poachers. Alex wanted to throw up.

The small clan of hyenas returned to the house later that morning. Alex was about to go back inside and work on the report on the second mine for Yassen, but he still paused on the porch and watched the animals move through the tall grass, occasionally calling out to each other. If there was any blood left on their fur, it was lost in their natural spots and patterns.

A familiar figure paused as well and made her way to the stairs. The hyenas had all learned that going any further would trigger a response from the nanorobots. Animals were not allowed inside the house.

Alex hesitated, then went down to greet Toka. It was easy to forget that she was an almost fully grown predator. That those sharp teeth had torn through human flesh and bones just hours before. He reached out with both hands to scratch her head roughly, just the way she liked, and she made a low, pleased, rumbling sound.

Alex wanted to hate her, wanted to blame her and the rest of the clan, but in the end she was only doing what she had been trained to. Hunt down and kill any outsiders.

"We're not so different, are we?" he asked softly.

Her only response was another low, rumbling sound, but he liked to think it was a little sympathetic.

* * *

Next: Between the devil and the deep blue sea.


	46. Scylla and Charybdis (Reprise)

The virus arrived at Yassen's temporary home escorted by one of SCORPIA's combat teams – Danube, to Alex's surprise – and exactly on schedule. Commander Hill and his men had obviously made a good enough impression on Yassen in Miami to be trusted with something like that, and Alex didn't doubt they had strict orders to handle any problems permanently and in whatever way they saw fit. It probably didn't hurt that Yassen knew they were also able to work with Alex.

The excuse used for keeping the virus with Yassen was that security was better at his place. Alex suspected that Yassen simply didn't trust Rensburg or his people around a weapon like that.

Both Yassen and Alex were there when it arrived, the whole shipment packed away in a metal box large enough to count as a small shipping container. The outside looked a little dented and worn, like any other shipping container would, and the paperwork claimed the cargo was medical supplies. The inside of the box was mainly insulation and an advanced temperature control system, along with solid padding to protect the two smaller crates inside that carried the actual cargo.

The virus itself was sealed in long tubes made of something that looked like glass but which was thick and guaranteed to withstand pretty much anything it could be exposed to on accident. The second crate contained row after row of much smaller vials. Alex guessed it was the vaccine based on his usual experiences with that sort of thing. He doubted SCORPIA would want to expose one of their own board members to a highly dangerous virus with no vaccine. Their own people, sure. Not a member of the executive board.

A separate small shipping container contained laboratory equipment and the sort of heavy protective suits that Alex remember seeing on film.

Yassen carefully opened the two crates and checked both the virus and the vaccine. Alex hesitated but moved closer to watch as well. It was unnerving and every instinct told him to get far, far away. Even the boxes alone looked ominous, never mind the vials and glass tubes.

"Weaponised Crimean–Congo haemorrhagic fever virus," Yassen said quietly. "Mostly known as the Congo virus. A less successful remnant of the Cold War biological warfare research. It was made more infectious and with an increased fatality rate but not enough to match the more successful projects. Perfect for an epidemic that must seem natural."

Alex was reminded of Sayle, of the submarine and of the man that Yassen had shot for dropping one of the boxes, and part of him understood uncomfortably well just why Yassen had done it. It was bad enough being this close to something that lethal in a safe-ish, stable environment. Seeing someone drop it, through carelessness or a moment of inattention -

Alex swallowed hard. He had understood the potential devastation the Stormbreakers and the smallpox in them could have caused on a theoretical level. Malagosto had blessed him with a whole new understanding of what a sufficiently lethal virus could do to the human body.

"The vaccine is still in its testing stage but the most recent results show it as highly effective. It will take up to four weeks to be effective and there will likely be some degree of side effects, but it will protect at least against this strain."

And in a month or two, whenever they were ready, that virus would be released in the wild to carry out its grim task.

" _I don't like this_ ," Alex said very softly in Russian, too low for anyone but the two of them to hear.

" _I am aware._ " Yassen gestured at Hill. "Have everything secured. Keep the vaccine separate. We'll need to draw up a schedule for distribution."

"Sir," the man agreed and started to pass on orders to his men.

Yassen glanced at Alex. "With me."

Alex followed him without speaking; through the surprisingly light and airy house, with its wide, bulletproof windows and expansive view of the lush landscape beyond.

Neither said a word until they reached Yassen's office and the door was firmly locked behind them.

"You do not approve of the operation," Yassen said.

"You know I don't," Alex snapped. "Some of those people mining diamonds are _kids._ They're twelve years old, trying to earn enough money to feed their family."

"That is hardly SCORPIA's problem." Yassen's voice was utterly unreadable. "Just as it was not SCORPIA's problem with Sayle, nor with Invisible Sword. Perhaps there will be ten thousand dead. Perhaps a hundred thousand. Perhaps a million. It hardly matters to us. We are merely paid to see it happen."

Alex's expression hardened but he didn't reply. They both knew how that argument would go.

"You have had access to highly sensitive SCORPIA information for a while," Yassen said, changing the subject fast enough to give Alex whiplash. "You have not made use of it."

If Alex had any doubts that Yassen knew his intentions, that would have removed them. He didn't try to deny it. "There'll be logs. Records. They'll know it was me."

"I think," Yassen said calmly, "that you're clever enough to get around that."

He was. Alex stayed silent, though. He needed to stop the operation. He needed to do something. But he couldn't risk something like Santa Catarina again. It wasn't just his life at stake, and the options he had available were all pretty bad. Yassen had to know that, too.

"Sensitive enough information to deal SCORPIA a serious blow," Yassen continued mercilessly. "Information that any intelligence agency would kill for. Enough information to stop this operation and likely several others currently in the planning stages. Enough information to take down a number of operatives and businesses."

Alex stared back defiantly. "What's your point?" he asked evenly.

"The point, little Alex," Yassen said softly, "is that you're out of time. You have a choice to make. There is a reason why successful deep cover agents are carefully chosen and very rare. No one would choose a teenager for it. It's a difficult position to be in, is it not? Your desire to stop SCORPIA on one side. Your loyalty to Sagitta and myself on the other. You are too emotional. Too attached. John Rider was an instructor at Malagosto for a short while. He was a born teacher. The students, all of us – we looked up to him. Idolized him. Hung on to his every word, every bit of praise. He would still have sold out every single person there in the name of his mission. He tried to keep me out of it, perhaps the only weakness in his cover. Everyone else was an enemy, expendable, or both, however friendly he was towards them. Hunter would have called MI6 down on this place without a thought and wouldn't have flinched if it saw every last person here killed."

Alex swallowed. He wanted to argue but couldn't look away. It wasn't the image of his father that he wanted to see but it was one he knew to be true. You didn't send in a deep cover agent that wouldn't be able to do the job. You didn't send in someone who might get attached and have second thoughts. You sent in someone who would do their job without a moment of hesitation, and never mind how many people they betrayed in the process.

"What do you wish for, Alex Rider?" Yassen asked. "To stop this? You have the means already. Any intelligence agency worth the name would gladly give you a new identity and your continued freedom in exchange for this sort of information. The executive board would not accept another failure from you. You would be killed if you stayed. Use the information you have, and the virus would be stopped and the only cost would be a combat team you have known for mere months. People who know the risks of their job. Perhaps they saved you from MI6 custody, but you have repaid that debt already. It will buy perhaps half a year of silence before SCORPIA is hired again by the next millionaire with an axe to grind and you will have changed very little."

The same thoughts that Alex had fought with, clear and concise and so much harsher spoken out loud. Yassen seemed to take Alex's silence as an answer of its own, because he continued.

"Revenge, perhaps? To take down SCORPIA, to finish Hunter's mission, and claim revenge for your family? You have the intel to deal them a serious blow but not to take them down. Not for many more years. MI6 was willing to leave Hunter with SCORPIA for however long was needed, however many lives he would have to take … and then your mother became pregnant, and he wanted out. You would need to do what he was never forced to. Not merely stand aside and let this operation happen, this and numerous others, but actively have a part in their success. You will have blood and lives on your hands, enough so that you will eventually lose count, and only then will you have the knowledge needed to take SCORPIA down for good. Its competitors will fight over the scraps and others will take over the areas that SCORPIA formerly held. Perhaps SCORPIA's eventual successor will be better, perhaps worse. Only time would tell."

Cool, blue eyes watched Alex, undoubtedly reading every emotion that crossed his face like an open book. Alex had long since accepted that there was very little he could hide from Yassen if the man really wanted to know.

"Of course," Yassen continued with deceptive lightness, "by then you may have no desire to move against SCORPIA. Your exclusive contract would be complete and you would very likely be a wealthy man. In two weeks, the last of your debt from Malagosto will be paid off. You will still be tied to SCORPIA, but everything you earn will be yours. You would be twenty, maybe twenty-five, with the world at your feet and the freedom to retire if you wished. You would be young enough to pursue whatever interests you may decide on and have the skills to stay alive. It would be very easy to simply carry on. You would be one of SCORPIA's best. That is a very well-paid and influential place to be."

Both were options Alex had thought about and neither was one he could make himself choose. Short-term success and long-term failure, or long-term success at the cost of everything he was, of standing aside to let thousands – hundreds of thousands, millions – die because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and SCORPIA didn't care.

Yassen let him consider that as the seconds dragged on.

"Have you ever wondered why no one acted against SCORPIA sooner?" he asked as Alex remained stubbornly silent.

Alex's expression hardened. "Because they were useful? Someone else to get their hands dirty when the _good guys_ didn't want to do it themselves?"

Like Blunt, and the FBI, and the CIA, and whoever else found it awfully convenient to pay to have their problems go away.

"Usefulness," Yassen agreed. "SCORPIA was born of the intelligence agencies. It is only in the most recent years the board has become overconfident enough to accept large-scale terrorist operations such as this. SCORPIA supplied operatives, assassins, and soldiers. Resources and connections. Perfect deniability and someone to carry out those necessary evils. Until SCORPIA began to assist people like Sayle and Cray and run operations like Invisible Sword, everyone was more than willing to look the other way. Few organisations are willing to handle biological weapons, much less target children on a large scale. Most would be crushed ruthlessly for doing so. Glaive would be destroyed if they tried. Yu's snakehead at its most powerful could not have risked it. Even SCORPIA dances on the edge of destruction. Take SCORPIA down and something else will rise in its place, and likely something far less organised and far more violent. Perhaps one of the many operatives that would suddenly find themselves without support or backup would successfully take over. Perhaps someone else. The demand is there. The current board merely pushed it too far."

Yassen rarely spoke that much or that long outside of actual lessons, and that forced Alex to listen as much as his unease of the situation did.

"Last I checked, you were part of that board. "

"The first of a new generation," Yassen agreed. "Do you wish to see SCORPIA destroyed? Someone else will take over. Do you wish for freedom? Remain with SCORPIA, and you will always be a target to the intelligence agencies. Turn on SCORPIA, ally yourself with its enemies, and you will be hunted down unless you raze the organisation to the ground. Even then, you would never be trusted again, and it would merely be a matter of time before you once more became a pawn for your abilities. Run, and you will be hunted by everyone. Like morals, freedom is a luxury afforded to those skilled and powerful enough to claim it. You are gaining the skills but not the influence."

Yassen's words, calm and clinical, was the sound of a heavy lock clicking into place. The sound of Dr Three's interrogation rooms when the door closed softly and there was no way out.

"So you want me to do nothing? Play along like a good little SCORPIA pet?"

Because they both knew the odds of that happening, even if Alex's sarcasm hadn't made that abundantly clear.

"I want you to consider your options. What do you wish for, Alex Rider?" Yassen repeated. "You joined SCORPIA for vengeance and for a chance to stop them from further destruction. Perhaps you have that chance now. What do you wish for?"

Alex wasn't surprised that Yassen had him figured out that well. The question still annoyed him. "You're humouring me."

"I am genuinely curious."

"You're part of the executive board. Aren't you supposed to stop me?"

"If I wished to do so, I would have killed you in Russia when I first suspected your plan." Calm. Even. Maybe Yassen was telling the truth. Maybe he was lying. Alex couldn't tell.

 _I want to destroy SCORPIA._

Except it wasn't that easy anymore. It wasn't just SCORPIA, it was everything. Yassen was right that destroying SCORPIA would just see something else rise in its place and possibly trigger a bloodbath in the process as various factions struggled for control, but it wasn't just that. SCORPIA had been a faceless, horrifying behemoth to Alex when he had still been in Russia. Then he had arrived at Malagosto, had graduated, had actually become part of it, and something had changed.

Sagitta was his. They were the closest thing he had to friends these days outside of his complicated relationship with Yassen. They had saved him on Santa Catarina, they had come back for him, and he had protected their commander in return. Nile was a cold-blooded killer with absolutely nothing in the way of morals or qualms, but he had been kind to Alex, had been a patient mentor and company when Alex had been entirely alone, and part of Alex genuinely _liked_ him. Crux was a torturer and took too much delight in her job, she was Dr Three's new apprentice and a future instructor at Malagosto, but she had treated him like a younger brother or nephew, sometimes even like a son, and she genuinely seem to like and care about him. She wasn't a good person, her or Nile, but they had been good to him and – he wasn't Hunter. He wasn't his father. He couldn't just forget that.

Maybe they would all be able to weather the fallout of SCORPIA's destruction and manage on their own, but he didn't know for sure and worse, he wasn't sure if that would even matter.

Yassen was right. He'd managed to get attached despite everything telling him not to, despite planning to turn on everyone, and now he had to deal with the consequences.

He _liked_ them. He liked Sagitta, he liked Nile and Crux, and he had mostly enjoyed his time at Malagosto, too. His classmates had been nice, most of the lessons interesting, and while some of it had been bad, he had mostly good memories of the place. He had loved his weeks on the _Fer de Lance_ and the week on the _License to Chill,_ and most of his memories of Yassen's Russian safe-house were good, too.

What did he want?

He didn't know. He didn't know, and Yassen had to have suspected it.

He wanted to be back in London, except he didn't, not back with MI6. He wanted … he wanted the safe-house in Russia. He wanted Tom back, and Jack, and the boring lessons at Brookland, but that was impossible and he knew it.

What _did_ he want?

He wanted to not be a killer, he wanted to be Alex Rider again, but Alex Rider had been at MI6's mercy. He might be a killer now but he was also alive. MI6 never asked him to kill, didn't even let him have a real weapon, but SCORPIA hadn't sent him off to near-certain death and left him to fend for himself, either.

Maybe it was just another of Yassen's lessons, some way to teach him about the dangers of morals and wishes, but he had asked and Alex would damn well answer. If Yassen wanted him dead, he could have damned him a dozen times over already.

"I want SCORPIA to stop targeting children," he finally said, a challenge in the words. "I want them to stop targeting innocents just because someone has money and wants to get even with the world. I want them to stop with their terrorist attacks, and I want Graff's drug destroyed."

Yassen didn't speak, didn't interrupt, and Alex continued, a little more defiant.

"I want SCORPIA to stop with drug trade and human trafficking, I want them to pay for killing my parents, I want the intelligence agencies to stop using kids for their dirty work, I want Jack and Tom to be safe, and I want to keep Sagitta. They're mine and they actually treat me like a person. If I can't take SCORPIA down without making things even worse in the process, I want them to be what they're supposed to be – a business that handles the necessary evils and not one of the most dangerous terrorist organisations on the planet."

"A long list." Yassen sounded faintly amused. "SCORPIA handles far more than merely large-scale attacks and the trafficking of various … cargo. You can't simply split it into a 'good' part and a 'bad' part. How do you judge it, Alex? The security and mercenary divisions are acceptable, but drugs are not? Assassinations, kidnappings, and blackmail are acceptable, but targeting children is not?"

Alex bristled. "You asked. And you said it yourself. Take down SCORPIA and someone will just take over. There will be a lot of operatives suddenly cut loose, too. They'll get themselves killed or look to the highest bidder for work. It won't be pretty either way."

The fallout would take years to settle. Maybe that was why no one had seriously tried to target SCORPIA for so long, either. Nobody wanted the sort of chaos that might follow that. Alex had kept an eye on the remnants of Yu's business as much as he could through SCORPIA's intel; those parts that ASIS hadn't managed to take down. SCORPIA had moved in to claim some of it. Three different factions in Jakarta were still fighting over control of another large chunk – the most recent estimate was more than a hundred dead from that power struggle already and with no sign of any clear winner yet. Numerous other people had been killed in other minor struggles for control, far from all of them actually involved in the business.

If SCORPIA fell … Alex could imagine what might follow. A number of their subsidiaries would be fine. Just as many wouldn't, and that wasn't counting the operatives and combat teams and similar that had just lost a massive support network.

"How pragmatic," Yassen murmured. "And if you could have it?"

There was something about the look in Yassen's eyes, something too sharp and focused for idle musings. Enough to make Alex wary.

"What do you mean?"

"If you could have it," Yassen repeated. "I asked you what you desired. You told me. If you could have that, Alex – what would you give? What would you do?"

Definitely not idle musings. Alex knew without any doubt that whatever he answered, Yassen would hold him to it. He swallowed.

"You mean all of it?" he asked, trying to buy time. Trying to be sure.

Alex's list had been long, and he knew it.

"Some would be harder to accomplish than others," Yassen conceded. "Graff's drug reaches beyond SCORPIA now. Ensuring the intelligence agencies won't be tempted to use teenage operatives won't be much easier, though blackmail could work in that case. Enough, perhaps, to ensure Blunt and his like will think twice."

Somehow that admission made it all the more real. Not just a moment of idle curiosity from Yassen but something he had genuinely thought through.

What would he give? Alex had gone into his one-man undercover mission perfectly aware that it would likely get him killed, that even if he survived, he would spend the rest of his life as a hunted man. He was a killer, he had a lot of blood on his hands, and he would have a lot more by the end of it.

What would he do?

Yassen had carefully manoeuvred him to that choice. He knew Alex couldn't let the operation succeed. He had made sure Alex knew that turning on SCORPIA with what he knew now would be a temporary victory at best. Alex himself was out of options – all options but the one Yassen had in mind, whatever it was.

Yassen preferred the cold, calculating skills of a professional assassin, but that didn't mean he didn't know manipulation and mind games. He had proven that already. Was that why he had let Alex get away with his attempt to stop Graff's drug? He had to have had some idea that Alex was going to do something since he hadn't been the least surprised when Alex had admitted it. Had it been a way to show Alex that it would be useless to try on his own? Alex had tried and failed once now. Operation Tisiphone would go no better. Even if he managed, how long before SCORPIA caught on? His third suspiciously failed assignment? His fourth?

Alex had no alternatives left and they both knew it.

Alex closed his eyes briefly before he opened them again and met Yassen's cold, blue ones without flinching.

"Whatever it takes."

"A dangerous promise," Yassen murmured.

"You asked."

"I did. These are your choices, then," Yassen continued, calm and relentless. "You remain with SCORPIA. No more hesitation or petty little attempts to work against what you don't agree with. You will remain my second in command, you will give them no reason to question you, and with some luck your encounter with Agent Daniels will never be discovered. With your skills and my support, there is a good chance you will be able to retire in ten or fifteen years as a very wealthy man. Thirty years old and with the world at your feet. Young enough to pursue whatever interests you may have. Sagitta will be yours if that is what you desire. Nile has a favoured combat team as well; no one will ask questions. If you still wish to go through with your original plan by then, you will have more than enough knowledge to do so. If staying with SCORPIA does not appeal, you can take your chances with an intelligence agency. The CIA has several agents stationed in Dubai in an attempt to gain intelligence on SCORPIA. The threat they pose is about to be resolved. You warn them, take the chance with them, and hope the gamble does not end in your death or permanent incarceration. Perhaps they will let you retire, perhaps not. You are an exceptionally valuable operative."

Alex took a deep breath. "And the last alternative?" Because there was one, and he knew it. Yassen would not have asked for his price otherwise.

Yassen watched him with cool, emotionless eyes. "We take down the executive board together. Take over the reins and control SCORPIA as partners and equals, able to trust each other in a way the current board never would. We would have the final say in any job we accepted. No more terrorist attacks? No more targeting children? Our word would be SCORPIA's command. Rothman gave the order to have your father assassinated and his family with him, but it was an unanimous decision among the board. Take your revenge on those that remain and ensure they will not get the chance to finish the job."

"I'm fifteen," Alex said, the first words that came to mind as his brain tried to catch up.

"You are," Yassen agreed. "Young for such a position and nowhere near prepared to take on such a role as you are now, but we would have time. Five, ten years before I wish to retire. Enough time to train a worthy successor. A gift for your twenty-fifth birthday, perhaps. Complete control of SCORPIA. Command of the organisation that killed your parents and the freedom to do whatever you wished to do with it."

Alex closed his eyes briefly again. Nodded. "How long do I have to decide?"

"If you choose to take your chances with the CIA? Two days. SCORPIA deliberately waited until they knew enough to unravel the whole network. Operatives have started to close in already. Nobody has any desire to warn them ahead of time. They will strike in three or four days at the most. If you do not … even then, I would recommend you decide fast. To dismantle an operation such as this and not have the blame fall on us takes a significant amount of planning."

As Alex should have learned after Santa Catarina, though Yassen didn't need to say that out loud.

Alex hesitated. "And if I don't choose?"

He was pretty sure he wouldn't like the answer. He had to ask, anyway.

The slight curl of Yassen's lip held no amusement, nothing but cold, sharp ruthlessness. "Then I will choose for you. I will destroy you and rebuild you to my liking. Loyal and lethal without any unfortunate ideas about morals and mercy. Alex Rider will be dead. You will be Orion. Nothing more. Nothing less. I think we both know I've proven more than capable of carrying through with that threat."

He had, and he would, too, Alex didn't doubt it for a second. Yassen wouldn't even need to use something like Graff's drug. If he wanted to take Alex's mind apart, there would be very little Alex could do to stop him. Yassen had been kind about it in Russia and even then he had managed to twist Alex into what he wanted. If he truly wanted to break Alex …

Alex nodded. Took a shuddering breath. "Two days, then."

"Two days," Yassen agreed. "Dismissed."

Alex nodded sharply.

Not long to decide. It was still leagues better than what Yassen had given him before.

* * *

Alex went through the rest of the day in a haze. Marcus didn't ask but rearranged the schedule for the following day into something that demanded a little less attention from Alex.

"Thank you," Alex told him quietly.

Marcus shrugged. "Officially, you're working on the detailed reports on the mines. Go hole up in your room, that's what it's there for."

Alex had dinner in his room. He appeared for breakfast and a hard workout, desperate to clear his mind a little, and then vanished back into his room. It was impersonal and too cluttered at the same time, but for once Alex didn't mind, too busy with his own thoughts.

On his own, the doubts started to appear.

Was it a test or a trap? Yassen had never stopped testing him, but the consequences if he got this one wrong could be his life. Did the executive board doubt him? Was this just a very elaborate set-up? If they did have doubts, he was surprised he was even given the chance to prove himself, but maybe that was Yassen's influence. Yassen's own words had gone so far beyond treason that Alex didn't doubt he would be disposed of if his fellow members of the board found out, but that was assuming it wasn't a test. That it wasn't a trap.

Was that was Yassen gambled on? That Alex would be paranoid enough to suspect the worst and remain the obedient operative that Malagosto had trained? That Alex's attachment to SCORPIA had grown strong enough to stop his original plans?

Would he sign his own death warrant if he approached the CIA agents that Yassen had mentioned? Would the board be watching and waiting for just that, the moment when words turned into treason?

Or was it a genuine offer from Yassen? Was it exactly what it sounded like? A genuine offer to decide his own future, for better or for worse? Yassen could lose a lot if Alex chose wrong. Or right, whatever way he looked at it.

Alex knew that taking down SCORPIA as it was wouldn't be an option. John Rider had failed to destroy the organisation. Would Alex do any better? He doubted it, no matter how much intel he brought with him.

… From the inside, though. Either serving his time until he knew enough to help some intelligence agency or another take down everything … or as Yassen's partner. If they controlled the board, they controlled the assignments SCORPIA accepted. He wasn't stupid. Yassen hadn't needed to point out that someone else would take over if SCORPIA was destroyed, Alex knew that already. The fight over Yu's snakehead was all the proof he needed. This way … maybe he could do something. That was obviously what Yassen wanted, or he wouldn't have pointed out those consequences otherwise. Wouldn't have waited until Alex had seen for himself just what sort of devastation Rensburg's plan would cause and known he would have no choice but to try and stop it.

Yassen wanted him with SCORPIA. As his second or as his partner, Alex couldn't tell. What was in it for Yassen, though? Was it power, or money, or something else entirely? He didn't know, and that meant he didn't know Yassen's motivations or likely plans, either.

Going against SCORPIA on his own now wasn't an option and Alex knew it. It wouldn't be enough and he would never get another chance.

But Rensburg's plans would target hundreds of thousands of innocents, probably millions; kill children and adults indiscriminately, and Alex had to stop it. Had to do something, and he was in no position to do that. He had the intel but not the opportunity to act on it, and Yassen knew that. Santa Catarina had been a disaster and a very risky lesson.

Alex couldn't go along with the plan, and that ruled out doing his time like a good little operative.

Yassen's partner, then. The only choice left, and Yassen had to know that, too.

If it were a trap, a test, he would be dead the moment he agreed to that plan. If it wasn't … then what?

They would need to take out the current executive board; skilled, paranoid people who had all survived multiple assassination attempts. It would be a bloodbath. Maybe Yassen had an idea how to do it, because Alex certainly didn't. He almost had to. He had already killed Yu, and Alex couldn't imagine Yassen would suggest a plan like that unless he thought they could pull it off.

… Or it was a trap. Either way.

If he did accept, if they did manage – they would be in charge of a criminal organisation of a staggering size. Even if they cut out the bits and pieces Alex refused to work with, it was still a behemoth. Could two people control that? A fifteen-year-old kid and someone who had only just been promoted to the board? Yassen obviously thought so.

Alex would be a target beyond anything he had been before. Jack hadn't been of interest to anyone so far, not really. Under surveillance, but that was all. If Yassen Gregorovich took control of SCORPIA in an unprecedented display of cold, calculated violence and brought Alex Rider with him -

Jack would be a target. Maybe even Tom. They would need security. Never mind Alex's own security, he was almost used to it these days and trained to consider it, but Jack and Tom were civilians. Entirely outside that sort of world.

What did Alex have to bargain with? Not much as it was. Alex as Yassen's partner, though – as his equal, or as much as he could be … SCORPIA was on decently good terms with the CIA. He would be in a position to negotiate. The parts of SCORPIA that Alex refused to accept, a guarantee they would not longer carry out the sort of atrocities they had been paid for in the past – that would be worth the protection of a civilian or two, wouldn't it?

If Yassen actually meant it seriously. If it wasn't a trap.

Yassen would want an answer. Before Alex could give it, he would need answers of his own.

* * *

Next: It all comes down to trust.

A/N: Yassen's offer/ultimatum was planned from the beginning. It just took a quarter of a million words to get there.


	47. Crossroads

Alex met Yassen in his office again the second day after their talk. He was more unnerved than he remembered feeling for a long time. He had known what to expect from the debriefing after Santa Catarina. This was entirely new territory.

He had come to the conclusion that Yassen meant the offer. He had to assume that, anyway. Trying to work out potential plots and traps and set-ups as seen from the executive board's point of view was a lost cause and an exercise in paranoia, and they had a lot more practice in that sort of thing than he did.

Alex would assume Yassen meant it, and then he would take it from there.

Neither spoke until Alex locked the door behind him, sealing them from the outside world. Yassen stood and walked across the room, stopping within arm's reach of Alex. His eyes were as emotionless as always, his body language unreadable. Alex would get no help at all from that.

"Alex," Yassen greeted. Even his voice gave nothing away. "Your decision?"

Alex wasn't leaving the room until he gave one, and they both knew it. That didn't mean Alex planned to make it easy.

"Tell me why, and I'll tell you," Alex threw back. "You've pulled the strings until I had very few choices left, and leaving SCORPIA the way it is isn't one of them. You're a member of the executive board. Why?"

Yassen seemed to consider it for a moment. Then he nodded slightly, accepting it as a valid question.

"Your father taught me that an assassin has no loyalties, no ties but his current payment, no morals he is not paid to have. That lesson has kept me alive for fifteen years. My association with SCORPIA has been profitable but was never based on loyalty. I was content to train you as my partner and student, to remain with SCORPIA for the duration of your contract, and simply vanish in the resulting chaos when you made your move. Merely one more casualty. It would be the perfect cover to allow for a peaceful retirement." He reached out and touched Alex's chin lightly. "Then the board saw how you turned out and took an interest in me beyond my skills as a killer. To fail the assignments they used to test me was unacceptable. To refuse a place on the board would have been an insult and cast doubts about my loyalties. It would have been a death sentence."

"And there is no retirement from the executive board," Alex finished quietly. Anyone else would have leapt at the chance for a promotion like that. Yassen Gregorovich, who had planned to retire, who wanted nothing more than a calm life with no one to pull his strings -

\- Yassen had no more of a way out than Alex did now. Only the complete destruction of the executive board would let him have his retirement on his own terms.

"My dad betrayed you," Alex said. "And you knew I planned to ruin SCORPIA."

 _That I planned to betray you, too._

"I owe Hunter my life."

"You saved me from Sayle. You didn't kill me when you should have."

"Perhaps," Yassen agreed. "I hoped it was only the one time you would get involved. That you would be left alone and have the chance for a childhood. When that did not happen, there were few options left."

"You could still have left me to fend for myself."

"As Hunter could have with me." There was something in the words and Yassen's voice, calm and even, like that explained everything in the world. "He betrayed me, he was loyal to MI6, and he did everything he could to dissuade me from my path. He still trained me to the best of his abilities knowing I would be an enemy, and what he taught me has saved my life many times since. How could I do less for his son? Your plan served my own purposes well enough. What you chose to do to SCORPIA mattered little to me."

"And now?" Alex asked. His plans would have served Yassen well before. Now, with Yassen's promotions … "You want to take over. That's the only realistic option you left me. Why? You wanted to retire. If I took down SCORPIA, you could still do that."

"A member of the executive board? SCORPIA's enemies would be much more paranoid about the possibility of a faked death for such a person than for a single assassin who had already lived far beyond the normal life expectancy for one in such a job. I would not have been worth searching for. A skilled assassin, perhaps, but little else and too old for that job soon enough. A member of the executive board, however … if there was even a whisper of doubt, they would never stop hunting."

If Yassen was going to be a target for the rest of his life, he would at least be a target on his own terms and with the full backing of a terrorist organisation. Alex could understand that. And maybe it would give him the time needed to work out a faked death convincing enough to have even those hunters back off.

"The first member of the executive board that was assassinated died under somewhat uncertain circumstances," Yassen continued. "There was no body, no actual proof of death. He simply vanished. He was Russian and had used his old contacts to arrange for the purchases of nuclear materials for several clients. The Russian intelligence services hunted his ghost for ten years before they finally had conclusive evidence of his demise. They did not relent. They did not care how expensive the hunt would be. They simply wanted him found, one way or the other. The Americans would have been no less relentless. There is evidence tying me to Sayle's plan. Dr Three arranged for the purchase of the virus but I was the contact. There will likely be evidence tying both of us to this operation as well. Do you think intelligence agencies these days will be any less relentless in their hunt for a member of SCORPIA's executive board known to deal in biological weapons?"

In an age of terrorism? They would never stop. Not until they knew for sure. Anything else would be too dangerous.

Yassen was as trapped as Alex was. Run, and he would always be hunted. Fake his death, and it would never be believed. Remain where he was, as the most recent member of the board, and he would be tangled up in SCORPIA's politics until someone managed to kill him or some sufficiently powerful intelligence agency had enough and made their move against the entire organisation. Even then, he would always be a target.

Yassen's plans had been simple, Alex understood now. Train Hunter's son, pay back the debt he felt he still owed, and then retire. Alex would have been an adult, able to stand on his own, and if he had still wanted to take down SCORPIA, that was no business of Yassen's. He would simply have vanished in the fallout. Alex would have been given the same chance Hunter once gave his own teenage apprentice – the chance to survive.

And then the executive board had taken an interest and ruined that.

Alex felt the claustrophobic sense of no escape closing in on him in a way he hadn't before. The complete lack of options. Not just for him, but for Yassen as well.

Yassen had too many powerful enemies these days. He would stand no chance alone. He needed the resources of SCORPIA to survive, but SCORPIA in its current state offered just as many potential enemies within the organisation as it did outside of it. And even Yassen Gregorovich, Alex understood with harsh, cold clarity, could not take down the executive board alone.

Alex wouldn't stand by and do nothing, but as it was, he was entirely out of options, too. If he stopped Rensburg, it was a short-term victory. If he didn't, millions might die. Alone, he could do nothing.

Together, though, as allies … maybe they had a chance. And with SCORPIA reined in, they would be in a position to return to an uneasy truce with the intelligence agencies and governments out there. No longer the dangerous, unpredictable threat the organisation had become, but the entity they had once turn a blind eye to in the first place. Maybe Alex and Yassen had different goals, but those goals could be made to work together. Yassen was willing to negotiate. If Alex was, too …

Maybe they could actually pull it off. Maybe it would go down in flames spectacularly, but at least they had tried, then, and they had done it on their own terms. SCORPIA trusted Alex these days, and with Yassen on the executive board … no one would suspect one of SCORPIA's leaders. It would be a bloodbath, Alex knew. He would need to be Orion, the hunter that Yassen and Malagosto had trained, and not Alex Rider the spy, but wasn't that what he had already decided?

Maybe Yassen was using him, manipulating him, but unlike Blunt and Jones and MI6, he was willing to make it a fair deal. To listen and to take Alex's demands into account. Equal partners and not just a convenient tool to use and discard when it became too broken. He would be fifteen, sixteen, with a staggering amount of responsibility, but he had handled most of the logistics for Rensburg's operation already, save for the virus itself. Yassen had tested him, and Alex had passed.

 _Whatever it takes._

"I will be Orion," Alex said and made his decision. "But you know my conditions. I know taking down SCORPIA entirely won't be a realistic option, but that doesn't mean I'll accept everything. We won't target children. We won't do large-scale terrorism. No more drugs. No more human trafficking. No more Invisible Sword. No more tsunamis. No more weapons of mass destruction. Rensburg will be stopped, and we'll do what we can to stop Graff's drug, too."

The first, tentative steps.

Yassen nodded slightly. "That will cut down on a number of activities but perhaps not as much in our income as you might expect. And perhaps it is … unwise to keep drawing that sort of attention from various governments."

"I want Jack to be safe, too. This will make her a target. I want her safe. Tom, too. I don't know if they'll target him, but MI6 knows about him, at least."

Yassen nodded slowly again. "You will be visible in a way you weren't before. It may be worth negotiating with the CIA for her security. SCORPIA has been on acceptable terms with them in the past."

As Alex had expected, too. It felt a little reassuring. Yassen was a practical man. If he thought it could be done, Alex trusted that.

"If we warn their agents in Dubai, they might be more inclined to listen." Alex put it in practical terms but Yassen's faint amusement told him the man knew exactly what Alex's motivations were. Alex didn't like the CIA but he didn't want their agents killed, either.

"Agreed." Something in the word told Alex that Yassen would see to it. That would have to do.

"And," Alex took a deep breath, voicing the last bit on his mental list of demands, "stop manipulating me. If you want me to take over everything one day, I need to be able to make decisions on my own, too. Tell me the options, tell me what you prefer, try to convince me if you want, but let me make my own decisions. Maybe you thought it was necessary before but if you want an equal, then treat me like one."

He could have sworn he caught a fleeting glimpse of amused pride in Yassen's features. Then it was gone. "Acceptable," the man agreed.

Right, then. Only one thing left to ask.

"You really think we can do this? Run SCORPIA on our own? The executive board started out with twelve members."

"I think we can do so for long enough. Most of SCORPIA's ordinary areas of operation run themselves quite well. There are trusted subordinates in charge that know to remain loyal. The board mainly concerns itself with larger operations. Most of those you would be unable to accept. Without those operations, the need for direct oversight would lessen, too. We would have enough time to find suitable replacements if needed."

Alex nodded. "Then I'll be whatever you need me to be to do this. I'll be Orion."

"You will be a trusted equal." Yassen's words were quiet but unyielding.

"And Sagitta will be mine." Maybe they didn't know what he was about to get them involved in, but he liked them and he trusted them and they were his.

Yassen's lips twisted slightly. "I think that goes without saying." He was silent for several seconds. "If we succeed, the world will see you as nothing more than my obedient puppet."

Alex took another deep breath. "Then they'll underestimate me. I don't care. Whatever you need me to be."

"So much like your father sometimes," Yassen said quietly, "and so much your own person as well."

"What's the plan, then? I assume you have one." Yassen had to, or he wouldn't have run that sort of risk.

"Stopping this operation has priority for now. We have around two months before the virus will be released. The vaccine alone will take a month to be effective. The best way to stop this operation unnoticed will be to have it simply become one more casualty in a strike against the executive board."

Stop the operation and target the board at the same time. It was efficient, like he had come to expect from Yassen. It would take some planning, too, but Yassen had already killed Yu. Based on information from Alex, but still. "You've got enough intel to do that?"

Alex wasn't even surprised. Yassen was excellent at intelligence gathering, and Alex had seen at least part of his files on the executive board. It wasn't surprising that he had managed to gain enough intelligence to be able to target them given fifteen years in SCORPIA's service and most of it as one of SCORPIA's best. It would be valuable information to keep around. For insurance, for payment, for bribes, or for protection. It was the sort of information the right people would kill for.

"Not on everyone," Yassen admitted, "but enough for this. Duval would be the easiest of the remaining targets. He has grown comfortable. Complacent. He spends his time in a small château in the Loire Valley. He has security but hardly on par with Yu's."

Alex remembered Yassen's profile on the man. Duval was former French intelligence but had changed his name, his entire identity, and after two decades in power, he had apparently grown lax. He was far less visible in the criminal underworld than Yu had been, far less notorious, and so a good part of his security was based on how unknown he was.

There had been two assassination attempts; both more than a decade ago and during operations. His home had never been a target.

Alex's mind worked fast to connect the dots. If Duval's security was bad enough, if he was vulnerable for long enough …

"Sniper?" he guessed.

"A fast acting sedative. Shoot anyone with him, sedate Duval himself. We will fake an attack from an intelligence agency, a kidnapping for the sake of information, and use the fallout to our advantage. This is the only current large-scale operation for a client. If Duval broke during interrogation, he would know enough to destroy this operation."

"They would believe it?" Alex couldn't help but sound dubious. The executive board was populated by paranoid people. Paranoid but intelligent.

"They will if we use the information I possess to send ASIS after Chase first. He was once part of ASIS himself. They do not take kindly to treason. They would still very much like to get their hands on him."

Fake a kidnapping, fake Duval's cooperation by sending ASIS after Chase, and only then would they act against Rensburg. The operation would not be the sole target of the attack on SCORPIA but simply one more entry on the list. A list that would look suspiciously like someone targeted the executive board itself. The failure of the operation would be seen as little more than a side effect of an attempt to target Yassen himself.

"And if they capture him alive? ASIS?" Alex asked. "He knows a lot about the executive board and SCORPIA. If they interrogate him -"

"To turn on SCORPIA is a death sentence. You will find no one on the board willing to cooperate. MI6 is ruthless. Even they did not manage to get more than petty details from Rothman. ASIS will get nothing from Chase. Yu had grown weak and become a risk. Chase has not. Most likely, they will not get him alive. They will either kill him to remove the risk he presents, or Chase will take the decision out of their hands himself. He knows what awaits him."

Yassen sounded utterly sure. That would have to be good enough for Alex.

Alex nodded. "And Rensburg?"

"I have given my fellow members of the executive board regular updates," Yassen said, "including on the client's unfortunate distrust, bordering on paranoia. He has been made well aware that one combat team alone has no chance to secure his home, yet he refuses any more outsiders access. He does not trust SCORPIA's reconnaissance, and SCORPIA does not trust his. He has also been warned repeatedly that using the one combat team he is marginally willing to trust for reconnaissance purposes as well as security will leave his home all the more exposed, but he does not care and refuses to allow a replacement team on the grounds. The executive board is well aware that you and your team have been away from the estate more often than not in an attempt to gain the intelligence that Rensburg's own people were too incompetent to handle."

"So in case of an attack …"

"It will be no surprise that you and Sagitta were elsewhere. There will be no survivors to identify the attackers as SCORPIA's own."

Kill everyone, then. The same orders as in Miami, except this time Yassen might very well expect Alex to be an active participant. They were too few to afford to be a man short, and he had agreed to that when he had said he would become Orion. Any other team that went with them would be at serious risk from the hyenas, and the clan was fast, lethal, and intelligent. Taking them down would cost lives.

Alex pushed the thought aside. It was something he would worry about later.

"Duval is in France. If the bracelets can track someone -"

"They can't." Yassen sounded certain. "We will test yours as well to be sure, but mine was examined thoroughly before I put it on. It has a reasonably short range, only about ten kilometres."

Because there was no chance SCORPIA would allow one of its board members to put on a piece of unknown technology. It felt strangely reassuring, even if it was only security by proxy.

Alex nodded. "I assume you want me in France as soon as possible, then."

An assassination, like Malagosto had trained him for. It had been a long time since Alex had actually been forced to do that. They didn't have a choice, though. It would be much easier for him to travel unnoticed and being absent without raising questions than it would for Yassen himself.

"After the vaccine," Yassen said. "I want it distributed as fast as possible."

Maybe a week, then, Alex figured. Yassen had mentioned possible side effects, and they needed to get things put into motion, too. He didn't complain, though. It was a stay of execution of sorts, and he didn't sleep well knowing that the virus was that close by. The vaccine would help.

The rough plan handled for now, Alex nodded. "Yes, sir. The schedule?"

"Danube is in charge of it. You're up in four days."

One more vaccine for his collection. Alex could barely contain his enthusiasm.

* * *

The vaccine got administered in small groups. It would take two weeks to get through everyone, but Alex understood the schedule the day after his own vaccine. He went to bed a little tired and sore and woke up with full-blown nausea and a raging fever. He ended up spending two days in bed, and he wasn't the only one. Most had side effects, and a good fifth of the people there ended up completely out of it for at least a day.

 _Still in its testing stages_ , Alex remembered. _Some degree of side effects._

If he weren't too dizzy to open his eyes half the time, he would have written a strongly-worded letter to whatever lab had made that thing to tell them exactly what he thought about their 'degree of side effects'.

Yassen, of course, was fine, and Alex muttered tired, bitter curses over that in-between throwing up and being stuck in weird fever dreams. Yassen had been in the first group, two days before Alex to make sure one of them was all right and clear-headed at all times, and he didn't even get a red spot from the injection.

"I rarely got ill even as a child," Yassen told him the second day, a little amused by the bitter curses. "And never as an adult."

Alex wasn't about to admit it, but there was something reassuring about having Yassen there with him. He was tired and sore and miserable, and switched between feeling like an icicle and like he was burning to death, and the cool touch of a wet wash cloth on his face was pure bliss.

At least Rensburg caught the side effects, too. Alex was vindictively pleased when he was back on his feet again, just in time to see Rensburg vanish into his home for three full days. When he reappeared, he still looked a little pale.

Yassen waited until Alex was completely recovered before he put their plan into motion. He would risk nothing else, and part of Alex felt a little warm and fuzzy when he found out about that. It was probably mostly practical concerns, but still.

It would not be an easy assignment but certainly not impossible, either. Duval's château was protected, but there were always holes in security if the target got too comfortable. In Duval's case, his home might be secure, but he was still exposed outside of that.

Alex had his instructions. Shoot Duval with a fast-acting sedative, kill anyone with him, and remove him from the place. If the man had a bad reaction to the drug, that wouldn't matter. He was too dangerous to keep alive for intel, too unreliable to interrogate as any member of the executive board would be, and so if he died from it, that was no issue. They simply had to make it look like a kidnapping. No bloodstains from Duval, no evidence it was an assassination. Nothing. It had to look real. He would be killed elsewhere, the body disposed of and never found.

Rensburg would be easy to handle after that. They weren't about to risk bringing the CIA or similar down on their own heads to stop the operation, but with inside information about security, guards, and everything else, Sagitta and Alex were more than capable of taking down Rensburg's operation on their own. SCORPIA's combat teams were trained to take orders. They would ask no questions.

The only issue was that Alex couldn't handle Duval alone. An assassination, yes. Not the faked kidnapping.

Yassen's solution to that was Sagitta. Or more accurately, one of the team's two snipers.

The next time Alex met Yassen at his temporary home, he had Marcus and Shale with him. No one else. The rest of Sagitta was still at Rensburg's estate, and Yassen's two combat teams were both busy as well.

Marcus looked a little unnerved. Shale hid it better. Alex couldn't blame either of them. Alex had arranged most things during the operation so far. To have them summoned to Yassen's temporary home was unusual at best. And no combat team liked 'unusual'.

"Commander," Yassen said. "With your agreement, I will need to borrow one of your snipers for a week. Orion requires support for an assignment."

"Sir," Marcus agreed. He still looked unsure about the situation. If it were really just a simple notice that Shale would be gone for a week, that could have been handled with a short message or a few words during one of Yassen's visits to Rensburg's estate. It wouldn't have required the three of them to make the trip to Yassen's place, with heavy security and no witnesses around, and Yassen certainly wouldn't have needed Marcus' permission.

"The target," Yassen continued, "is one of the executive board. Make it look like a kidnapping by an intelligence agency. Kill him elsewhere, dispose of the body. He must never be found."

Alex heard Marcus' sharp breath and saw a brief, startled expression on Shale, but neither of the men reacted otherwise.

"In this case, I will give both of you the chance to refuse. You are here, commander, because it would be unreasonable to expect one of your men to keep secrets from his commanding officer. Agree, and your team will be tangled up in SCORPIA politics of the most lethal sort. Effectively, your lives will be tied to mine as much as Orion's is."

"And you would just … let us walk out of here if we refused. Sir." Marcus sounded dubious. He wasn't the most diplomatic man on the best days, and much less when he was rattled.

Fair question, too. It was Yassen Gregorovich and they just got evidence of the sort of politics that could get people killed for even whispering about. All logic said that if they refused, the sensible solution would be to dispose of the potential leak. Then again, logic also said that if they agreed, the sensible thing would be to remove them afterwards as witnesses.

Sagitta had been given no better options than Alex himself had.

"You have been loyal to Orion," Yassen said, "beyond what could reasonably be expected of you. I owe you for that."

Marcus nodded slowly. He still looked rattled. Shale took a slow breath and took over.

"Can we ask why, sir?" he asked.

Yassen glanced at Alex. Arched an eyebrow in a silent order. Alex took a deep breath. "Because the executive board has made some unfortunate decisions in recent years. If they're allowed to continue, they could destroy the entire organisation." There, nice and political. Not his personal opinions but something that was for the good of SCORPIA as a whole. Well, most of it, anyway.

"Biological warfare." Marcus' comment was not a question.

"On several occasions," Yassen agreed. "SCORPIA was paid to engineer a bioweapon-based terrorist attack once before. It would have targeted every school-age child in Britain. Orion, while he was still in the service of MI6, was the reason it failed. SCORPIA was also paid quite well to engineer the terrorist attack that would have targeted those same children in London less than a year later using nanotechnology. Chance alone saw that fail. How long do you think it will take before someone decides that SCORPIA is too dangerous to leave alive, commander? Malagosto was moved from Venice already for that reason. We have lived quite easily alongside the various intelligence agencies for two decades. Until now."

"Until now," Marcus repeated. "New blood, then, sir?"

"Cut off the diseased parts and ensure it will not happen again." Yassen's explanation was curt and clinical for something Alex knew would take a lot of bloodshed and upheaval.

Marcus nodded slowly again. Alex could see him consider the alternatives. Get involved in high-level SCORPIA politics, throw their lot in with Yassen and Alex, prove their trustworthiness, and stand to gain a lot of power and influence if Yassen's coup succeeded … and lose just as much if it failed. Or stand aside. Remain one of SCORPIA's normal combat teams. No longer Orion's favoured one, that would be too risky, but a good, competent one with a sound reputation after the operations they had been involved with. As safe as any combat team could get.

Yassen had put the choice in Marcus' hands. Without his full team there, without even his second in command, the choice was Marcus' alone.

In the end, it came down to trust. How much did Marcus trust them? Enough to trust Yassen wouldn't turn on them? Enough to trust they wouldn't be removed afterwards as potential witnesses? Enough to trust that Alex's attachment to them was stronger than Yassen's hold on him if it came to that?

Marcus turned his attention from Yassen and to Alex himself. For a long time he just watched. Whatever was going on in his mind, Alex couldn't tell anymore.

His expression hardened. Then he turned back to Yassen again and nodded once. "We're in, sir."

Had Yassen expected as much? Alex couldn't tell. He didn't look surprised but then, Yassen never looked surprised. He just handed a folder to Shale and Alex. Alex had read it already, but it would give Shale the chance to get the background, too.

"The target is Duval," Yassen said. "You have a week to see it done. There is a chance Rensburg will ask questions about your disappearance. The American CDC has a team stationed in Uganda, near the border to the Congo, looking into the remnants of McCain's plague. The World Health Organization has a presence there as well. It would be in the client's best interest that we took a closer look at the situation to be sure they will not be a problem when his plan is carried out. The two of you can reasonably pass for family. It would be easier to travel unnoticed. Few would suspect a teenager. Even then, it will still draw unwanted attention if you are gone for too long."

Their cover, then. Shale nodded.

"Read the briefing here. The papers do not leave this room."

Neither Shale nor Marcus looked surprised. That sort of evidence was enough to get Yassen and Alex killed, and earn whoever brought it to Duval's attention a significant bonus and promotion.

Shale opened the file but looked at Yassen before he started reading. "When do we leave, sir?"

"In two days. Duval recently returned home. If he follows his usual habits, he will remain there until business necessitates otherwise."

Translation, Duval had committed the cardinal sin of developing a routine, or Yassen had someone on the ground near Duval's home. Not necessarily someone from SCORPIA, either. Yassen, as Alex had learned, had a lot of contacts after fifteen years in that sort of business. Alex suspected the former, though.

Without a known time for when Duval would actually be out in the open, it would be a long, boring wait. A long, boring, cold wait. It was approaching winter. Even France wouldn't be particularly warm and pleasant. Probably not freezing, but definitely a little cold. Maybe it would even rain. Alex could already feel his mood go downhill.

Shale and Marcus settled down to read. Alex opened his own file to go through the contents once more, though his thoughts kept drifting to the weather forecast instead.

Alex Rider didn't _like_ Rensburg's estate but he still liked the climate much better than France in December.

* * *

Next: Alex never realised how much easier his job was with SCORPIA's contacts to draw on.


	48. Freelance

A/N: As always, thank you for reading, and for your reviews! :)

* * *

Paris was cold compared to the middle of Africa, and Alex found himself shivering a little as they left the airport.

Shale wasn't even thirty and looked even younger, so instead of the cover of father and son that Alex was used to, they travelled as half-brothers on Spanish passports. Shale spoke Spanish as his first language – Castilian Spanish like Alex, though a slightly different variation of it. Still, it was something that could easily be explained by being raised by different mothers. With Alex's more or less permanent tan and his hair dyed the same dark brown as in Nice, they could pass for family.

Alex didn't ask how long in advance Yassen had arranged for their covers. The man planned for every contingency. The cost of two fake identities would be nothing if they should turn out to be unnecessary. Shale would be the natural support for Alex, being closest in looks to him among Sagitta's two snipers, and with Alex's strong attachment to the team, maybe it wasn't a surprise that Marcus had chosen to side with them in the end.

It was still odd, though. He was used to travelling with Yassen or alone. Having someone else with him was … weird. Mildly unsettling. Even with someone he trusted.

Alex couldn't imagine it was much easier for Shale with his team on another continent.

They had read and memorised the file from Yassen. It was too dangerous to bring with them. They couldn't risk using SCORPIA contacts for anything, either. Yassen had acquired their new identities through other contacts and had arranged for the same to supply their weapons. To all intents and purposes, Alex and Shale were freelance for the week.

It was a weird thought. Alex didn't like to admit it, but he had grown used to SCORPIA's network of support. Intel, weapons, papers, anything. No wonder so many of their operatives stayed beyond the end of their contract. He felt alone in a way he hadn't before; reliant on the contacts Yassen had given them but with nothing else to draw on. He had no network of his own, no one to call. If something went wrong and they couldn't get in touch with Yassen, they would be entirely on their own.

No one stopped them at the airport. No one looked twice at them. Even customs didn't care. There was no local SCORPIA contact to have arranged for transport, but Shale had already booked a car through one of the numerous car rentals at Charles de Gaulle Airport. It was a perfectly bland, average Renault, just the sort of mid-priced car for two half-brothers taking a week off to see France before heading back home to Spain. It was a vaguely unnerving thought to Alex that for the past year, he had been more used to armoured cars than normal ones.

Yassen's contact for weapons brought them through Paris itself. It was a world removed from last time Alex was there, at the heart of the the old city. This time the address brought them to a neighbourhood that consisted mainly of newer apartment buildings to one side and a string of grey and white houses to the other, hidden behind solid fences and closed curtains.

Shale stopped the car and glanced at Alex. "I think this is more your area than mine."

Probably, not that Alex had much more experience with that sort of thing. He remembered SCORPIA's contact in Singapore but doubted this was anything like that.

"Right," Alex agreed. He didn't sound quite as confident as he had wanted to. Dealing with SCORPIA's own people was something very different. He trusted that Yassen's contacts were reasonably reliable, but it was still enough to put him on edge.

The weather outside was damp and a little chilly. It had been cloudy since they landed and looked to stay that way for at least another couple of days. Alex checked the address again and stepped through the gate, Shale close behind him. Up close, the place was definitely in need of some attention. Chipped paint, rust on the fence, and haphazard repairs.

A woman opened the door before Alex could knock.

" _Yes?"_ she demanded in accented French.

" _We're here about the motorcycle,"_ Alex replied, following the script Yassen had given him. _"The listing – a Gima?"_

The woman looked dubious. _"You can drive one?"_

" _My brother can."_

She looked between the two of them, then nodded and let them inside. _"As long as you pay cash, then. We'll talk."_

The inside of the house looked a lot nicer than the outside had. The curtains were thick and allowed no one to look inside. The woman still checked them before she brought out a large, heavy duffel bag and held out her hand.

" _Money."_

Shale paid without argument and opened the bag. Two sniper rifles, two guns, several boxes of ammunition, a small pack of plastic explosives along with detonators, headsets, and a flat metal case. Alex opened the case and found a row of wicked-looking darts along with two glass vials. The sedative, then.

Shale had checked over the rest. One rifle had been customised for the darts but everything else were normal weapons.

" _Thank you,_ " Alex said. It didn't hurt to be polite.

The woman nodded. Alex didn't know her name and she didn't know theirs. It worked for everyone. They were on their way again ten minutes later, with the weapons packed safely away.

"We'll need to zero them," Shale said. "We'll find a quiet place to do it."

Alex nodded. "Clothes, too."

Something meant for outdoor use. They had brought normal clothes, not really in a position to get the sort of clothes they would need for France in December in the Congo. They could easily end up spending days watching Duval's home and waiting for the shot.

They spent the night in a small, inexpensive hotel in Orléans. Fluent in French, Alex handled anything and happily chatted with the man behind the counter. As the CIA and MI6 and SCORPIA had long since learned, there were few covers as good as travelling with a child, and Alex was still very obviously a young teenager.

They both felt better the next morning. Good food and a solid night's sleep had worked wonders. A visit to an outdoor supply store got them the rest of the equipment they needed, five undisturbed minutes near a car that didn't seem to have been moved in a while got them a set of extra licence plates, and a drive south would give them a less populated place to zero their rifles. By the time anyone potentially called the police on them, they would be long gone.

Most of the drive passed in silence, both of them focused on the days ahead.

"The darts for you?" Shale eventually asked.

They were about equal with the sniper rifles, experience had shown them as much. Malagosto generally didn't train snipers but preferred to steal them fully trained from elsewhere. Yassen Gregorovich did, though, and he had not allowed Alex to do less than his very best. Shale wasn't anywhere near Yassen's level but then, very few people were.

Alex could handle the killing just as well as Shale could, at least in theory. Yassen had made sure of that. Alex still appreciated the out he had just been given. He had enough nightmares and memories to haunt him already. If Shale didn't have a problem handling it, Alex wasn't too proud to refuse that bit of kindness. The fast-acting sedative could still very well kill Duval, but it wasn't a bullet, and somehow that mattered. Maybe it was selfish to make Shale do it instead, maybe he should be the one to do it as the person in charge of the operation, maybe he should just accept it and get it over with because he would have to be Orion for this to have any chance of success, but Alex couldn't make himself refuse.

"Yes," he agreed and continued a heartbeat later, just a little quieter. "Thank you."

Shale didn't reply, just reached out to ruffle Alex's hair before he focused on the road again.

They stopped in a reasonably remote forest area to zero the riles. It wasn't as remote as they would have liked, but it would have to do. Between necessity and experience, they were finished and gone again fifteen minutes later, long before anyone could track them down for questioning.

They had everything they needed. All they had to do now was get to their target. It still felt wrong to Alex, driving through the Loire Valley and its idyllic houses and landscapes, knowing they were there to kill people. He didn't ask if Shale felt the same. He really doubted it. No one else seemed to have a problem with assassinations. He didn't doubt he was the only one of Malagosto's graduates who did, and Shale had served as a sniper for years. He would have no qualms about killing.

They found Duval's home after a couple of tries, a small, secluded château surrounded by an immaculate lawn and a forest beyond the grounds. They parked the car on a dirt path in the forest, well out of sight, and changed the licence plates. The path itself was mostly overgrown, a pretty sure sign it saw very little traffic. Duval had few staff and little security. According to Yassen, the man valued his privacy and had grown too confident in his anonymity.

Yassen had left the details up to them. None of them knew what conditions would be like, what sort of opportunity they would get. The final decision of when to act and how to do it would be Alex and Shale's.

With Duval handled, Alex would stay to watch and pick off any additional trouble. Hopefully the sedatives would do the job for that, too. Shale would get the car and retrieve Duval; the risk of someone identifying Alex's figure as a teenager was too great, even masked and with heavy clothes on. They would both have preferred someone else to handle that part, the drive and retrieval both, but that wasn't really an option. They needed to keep it as low-key as possible, and that meant as few people as possible. Shale did the run back twice before they got settled and timed it at just below two minutes, plus the time to drive back and get the gate opened. A short run, but a long time in case something went wrong.

It also made the whole mission feel uncomfortable real to Alex. It wasn't just theoretical anymore.

They ended up spending three days in that forest, getting a solid look at the place and surroundings and simply watching Duval's home. It wasn't cold, not really, but the ground was damp, and it rained the afternoon that first day, light but persistent. Good outdoor clothes kept them dry and warm, but Alex was still pretty miserable.

They had a good count of the staff by the third day and Yassen's intel had been right. The château was small and needed few people to run it; probably an additional layer of security. Duval had what looked like a housekeeper that kept the place clean. A personal assistant – valet, butler, whatever he was – that they frequently spotted near Duval through the windows. A cook, of course. A gardener came around on the second day to care for the place. There wasn't much to do that late in the year, though Alex could imagine it would be very different come summer.

Beyond that, Duval had security in rotating shifts. There were always three guards present, and that wasn't counting the security built into the château itself. The fence and gate were pretty solid, enough so that Alex and Shale would need explosives to deal with it. Duval wasn't quite that lax. Alex couldn't even blame him for getting overconfident, though. Duval's records were pristine. It wasn't just a fake name and some passable paperwork; it was a rock-solid second identity that existed in every government database in France. He had a legitimate passport and a career as a comfortably successful stock trader that was approaching retirement. He paid his taxes, voted in every election, and had made a hobby of caring for his château. He had a birth certificate, school records, and a solid employment history, even for the time when he had actually be in the service of French intelligence under his real name. He went to the dentist, had his medical check-ups like his doctor recommended, and donated to charity.

There was nothing tying him to SCORPIA or any other illegal activities. No one had been able to pin Yu's connection to SCORPIA until Ash had turned sides again, but he had been the acknowledged head of a massive criminal organisation of his own. He'd had a lot of enemies without adding SCORPIA's to the list. Duval was invisible. Only the fact that Alex had _met_ Duval, had seen the man up close, let him recognise him the first time they caught sight of him through a window. His clothes were different, his body language, everything. It was Duval, Alex knew it, but the change into his secondary identity was so complete that Alex didn't doubt most would be fooled.

It was no wonder no assassin or intelligence agency had ever targeted him outside of operations. Duval looked perfectly average. Perfectly harmless. If Alex had met him on the street, even knowing what Duval looked like, he would very likely still have overlooked him.

Whatever Duval had paid for the cover – and Alex knew that had to have been a _lot_ – it was worth every pound. He had seen legitimate identities less credible than that.

"Target confirmed?" Shale asked beside him, the first time they caught a glimpse of the man himself through an ornate window.

"... Target confirmed," Alex agreed, and even then he had to watch for long seconds to be sure.

Duval at home, in his second identity, was a very different man than the cold, emotionless member of the executive board that Alex had met in Paris. That man had reminded him vaguely of Blunt, just … deader and a lot more lethal. With little security – no more than could be excused by his wealth and home – a solid background, and a home that was remarkably hard to find even with detailed instructions, Alex would be surprised if even most professional assassins would be able to track him down. His lack of security wasn't even overconfidence, Alex realised. It was a calculated risk and part of what kept him safe. What kept him from drawing unwanted attention. A unreasonably high level of security would raise a number of red flags to someone looking for one of SCORPIA's elusive board members. One middle-aged stock trader with only the security expected of someone wealthy but not overly influential, however …

Duval looked utterly harmless. Average. Enough so that Alex six or even three months ago would have doubted this could actually be a member of SCORPIA's executive board. Shale trusted Alex to get it right, and Alex … only the meeting in Paris meant he was sure. Unlike most of Duval's surviving colleagues on the board, there were no good photos of the man in circulation. The ones Yassen had given them had been taken at long range. Anything French intelligence would have was worse than useless after two decades and likely plastic surgery. The man was as much of a ghost as Yassen Gregorovich.

Yassen could have sent no one else, Alex realised as well. Not only because of trust, but because even with Yassen's photos, someone who had never met the man wouldn't be able to tell for sure the target was right. He could easily have hired an external contractor for Yu's assassination, the man had been recognisable, but not Duval.

It took three days of waiting. It could easily have taken twice that, and then Alex would have had to make the call – stay, even though the window of opportunity for being mysteriously absent was closing fast, or call off the mission. He was glad he wouldn't have to make that choice.

Alex had learned patience over the months with Yassen, but he was still tired and restless and bored out of his skull by the end of it. His clothes, unchanged for all three days, were stained and reeked of sweat and forest floor, the same combination of damp soil and decomposing leaves that Alex had been up close and personal with for entirely too long by now. He wanted to get up, desperately wanted to work out, to move, to go for a run, wanted to _do_ something, but he could do nothing but wait. Restlessness had overtaken his apprehension about their mission by the second day and hadn't let up since.

Shale had the patience of a trained sniper, but Alex really didn't, and it took conscious effort to stay put.

They finally got the opening they needed on the afternoon that third day, when the gate opened soundlessly and a dark car drove into the courtyard. It wasn't Duval's usual car. That one was visible through the windows in the garage, a vintage Aston Martin that definitely wasn't armoured to the same level that the new arrival almost certainly was.

The car stopped. The windows were dark, but Alex caught a glimpse inside as a single man in a casual suit got out.

"Bodyguard," Shale breathed. Alex agreed. The man looked like one. There was no one else in the car that he had spotted those few seconds, though. Just the driver.

One of the security guards approached the man. They looked tense for a moment as they exchange a few words. Then the tension eased and they greeted each other with the casual ease of colleagues. A check to make sure everything was fine, or that was Alex's guess, anyway.

"I think that's B6 or B7 armour on the car," Shale continued, still in that low voice. "It looks a little heavy for anything else. We probably won't be able to get to the driver, even with armour piercing rounds. Might still be worth a shot or two when the rest are down."

It was different from working with Yassen but there was still something soothing about Shale's quiet comments. Alex had good aim but little practical experience with that kind of assassination, much less the need to improvise. There had always been orders. Instructions. And, if everything had gone wrong, the reassuring presence of Yassen nearby, even in Miami. The added responsibility of being on their own wasn't welcome.

Yassen was in a league of his own, but Shale still had half a decade of experience as a sniper and didn't seem to mind taking over Alex's training for a while.

They watched and waited in silence. The driver turned off the engine. The bodyguard and the security guard chatted amiably. Ten minutes became fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. The staff seemed to be used to waiting or they knew it would be pointless to get annoyed.

Finally, more than half an hour later, the door opened. Duval appeared with his assistant and a second security guard. It was the first time Alex had seen the man outside of the château and not through a window.

Without glass between them, Duval looked marginally more like the man Alex had met briefly. Even then, it would have been very easy to dismiss it as just a vague resemblance. Duval had no identifying features, no visible scars, no distinctive marks. Even his body language was different; his body language and his way of interacting with his staff. They didn't act with the understandable fear and respect that SCORPIA's people had shown on the boat in Paris. The crew on the boat had been silent and respectful, never even glancing at the board room or the people there. They had known the punishment for curiosity. Duval's personal staff was respectful, certainly, but they didn't have the same fear.

Alex seriously doubted Duval's regular staff at the château actually knew exactly what the man was involved in. Even the security staff probably only got an edited version of the truth. Enough to take their job seriously and not ask questions, and nothing more.

Six targets, including their primary one. Two security guards, the bodyguard, the driver, Duval's assistant, and Duval himself. Three possible complications unaccounted for – the housekeeper, the cook, and the third security guard of the afternoon shift. There could be more they didn't know about, but they would deal with that if they had to.

Alex handled the darts; that made Duval his target. The rest …

"Duval has priority," Shale said, his voice little more than a soft breath. "Focus on the bodyguard and the assistant afterwards. I'll take out security and try for the driver."

Duval would be the hardest shot, Alex knew. He had to go for exposed skin, preferably the neck. Anything else carried too much of a risk of body armour.

It was a short walk from the main entrance and to the car. The bodyguard snapped to attention, as did the security guard. Alex saw them speak but could hear nothing from that distance. He breathed out slowly. Focused on his target. Let everything around him fade away until there was nothing else in the world but Duval and his movements.

Shale's quiet voice broke the silence again. "Three, two, one -"

Alex pulled the trigger almost the same instant as Shale's rifle fired. He knew he got it right even before the dart struck. It hit the side of Duval's throat, a sliver of dull metal almost invisible in the cloudy winter weather. Duval moved like a viper, hand snapping to the dart, but it would already be too late. Alex's attention shifted to the bodyguard. The man was already moving, but the situation was quickly descending into chaos. One security guard was down, Duval was swaying, and Alex heard Shale fire again a heartbeat after he fired his second dart.

His second shot was less graceful and more rushed but it didn't matter. The dart hit the bodyguard in the middle of the throat and probably went deep enough to cause actual damage. The assistant was moving, too; he clearly had some sort of training but not enough. A third dart hit his thigh, Alex gambling on the lack of body armour there.

He heard the rifle fire again beside him, the first shot aimed at the armoured car. Another shot followed almost immediately after. Then Shale pushed the rifle in Alex's direction and took off at a run.

Alex focused on his scope and the château and trusted Shale to handle himself. He didn't dare to look away.

The château was still. Dead. There was blood on the gravel where the security guards had fallen and two holes in the glass of the driver's side of Duval's car. Not quite armoured enough, then.

Alex struggled to push aside the sudden nausea and focused on the building instead. He didn't look at the dead bodies, didn't check to see if Duval or the bodyguard or assistant were still breathing. Just focused on the building and the few people he knew were still inside.

The world around him was utterly silent. No animals, no movements, not even the soft sound of Shale's breathing. The seconds stretched on. Had Shale reached the car yet?

A flicker of movement behind one of the windows near the entrance caught his attention. He recognised the uniform of the guard and wondered if someone had called the police yet. What were their instructions in case of trouble? And would those instructions go out the window with that many dead and their employer unmoving on the ground?

The man seemed to hesitate, still protected by the windows. Check on his colleagues and boss or stay inside? Were their attackers still around? The stillness stretched on. The man vanished from sight and reappeared in the shadow of the door. Maybe he thought the snipers were long gone, or maybe he had just miscalculated the direction of the shots. Either way, Alex saw his chance.

With the man standing still – mostly shrouded in shadows, but recognisable – it was an easy shot. The needle hit the guard in the throat and the drug kicked in almost immediately.

The man swayed. Tried to grasp his gun but lost his grip on it. He stumbled and fell a few seconds later, unmoving on the ground.

He was still breathing, at least. Alex tried not to look but it was impossible not to in the long seconds it took to check the man was out cold. Then his attention drifted back to the château.

Finally the silence was broken.

" _Status?"_ Shale asked through the headset.

"I got the last security guard. No sign of other issues. You?"

" _About to blow the gate,"_ Shale replied.

Alex nodded though Shale couldn't see it. A sharp crack cut through the stillness, dulled by distance. A muted thump told Alex the gate had just fallen over.

The car appeared shortly after. Alex focused on the château and trusted Shale to handle the rest. The man moved fast to restrain Duval thoroughly with duct tape. They had to keep up the image of a kidnapping. If someone found the darts they had used, so much the better. They had left no fingerprints, but the heavy sedative would speak volumes about their intentions.

Alex risked a glance to see Shale half carry and half drag Duval to the car and dump him in the boot. He didn't bother to be gentle.

" _Primary objective secure, still alive and breathing,"_ Shale reported as he got back behind the wheel. Alex had seen it but it was still nice to get it confirmed.

"Copy."

Time to get out of there, then.

Alex packed away the rifles and their few other possessions with swift, practised motions and set off in the same direction as Shale had. It was like the morning run in Russia again, the careful balance between speed and not stepping wrong even once. He knew the time it took, and it still felt like an eternity before he saw the car.

Through the forest, down to the small, private road, and the spot they had agreed on, and while Alex didn't breathe a sigh of relief to see Shale there, it was close. The sound of the car door closing behind him was the best sound he had heard in days.

They stopped briefly by a remote side road well away from Duval's home to replace the licence plates with the proper ones again and dispose of the stolen ones. They changed clothes to something a little less filthy and burned the old ones. The rifles were wiped down, just in case, and buried with the licence plates. Any evidence they could dispose of, they did.

They didn't want to risk crossing a border with a kidnapping victim in the car but they didn't need to. They just had to get well away from Duval's château. Yassen didn't want to run the risk of interrogating him. He simply wanted the man to vanish and had the contacts to make a body disappear without question or trace.

Alex and Shale's destination was an address in the south of France and an undoubtedly fake name to get in touch with. They couldn't risk a hotel but stopped at a deserted rest stop to give Duval another round of sedative and catch a brief nap.

Up close, the man looked harmless. Like any other middle-aged male. Alex looked away before he could be reminded of just how human Duval looked when he was sedated. The man was cold-blooded and ruthless, had been ready to have Alex shot if there had been the slightest doubt about his suitability as Yassen's second, but he still looked deceptively harmless now.

Duval was still alive, with no bad reaction to the drug, but there was already a running countdown, Alex knew. Even if Duval hadn't already been marked for removal, the lack of water would get to him eventually.

Alex called ahead, a brief conversation with the contact to agree on a time and rattle off the all-clear codes that both sides expected, and a few hours later, in the very early morning, they found themselves staring at a small crematorium in an idyllic, secluded part of the countryside.

For a moment, they just stared. Then Shale shrugged.

"Efficient, I guess," he said and got out.

Alex hesitated but followed a moment later. Efficient. The pragmatic sort of solution that Yassen favoured. Alex wasn't even sure why he was surprised.

Shale hauled Duval's unconscious body over his shoulder. Yassen's contact met them by the door.

" _Do you have an appointment?"_ he asked in French.

" _Arranged for by our father,"_ Alex replied.

The man nodded, satisfied with the expected response, and let them into the silent building, past what Alex assumed were the normal, public areas and into a room in the back. Their contact watched as Shale dropped his cargo on the sole bit of furniture there, a metal table on wheels to one side. Then he frowned slightly.

"The body is still alive," the man told Alex, switching to English. "The agreement was a dead one."

Right. The nausea was back – an overdose of the sedative was an option, but he would need to go get the rest of the drug in the car – but before he could do anything, Shale took the two steps to Duval's unconscious body. Alex looked away the moment he recognised Shale's grip on the man's head, familiar from Malagosto and Yassen's lessons, but it did nothing to hide the sickening crack that followed as Shale snapped Duval's neck.

It sounded horribly loud in the still room. Shale checked for any pulse and glanced at their contact. "One dead body."

The man nodded swiftly. If he was bothered in the least by the murder, it didn't show. "Clean and neat. A pleasure to do business with you."

A solid stack of cash changed hands. The body would be cremated, the ashes carefully disposed of. No evidence.

One more murder for his count. Alex hadn't finished it, but he had still been in charge. All of a sudden, he wanted out of there. Away from the creepy stillness and the thought of the many dead bodies that had passed through the building.

"Let's go," he said.

Shale seemed to agree. Neither spoke until they were outside again and Alex took a deep, shuddering breath of clean, cold air. His hands were trembling; the sudden crash of adrenaline from days of tension and the moment he realised he wouldn't have to handle Duval's murder himself. He wanted to say something, anything, but before he could, Shale broke the silence.

"You're fifteen," he said quietly. "You've killed enough already without adding that sort of clean-up to the list. SCORPIA's opinions can go hang."

A surge of something flooded Alex – relief and wild gratitude and the quiet horror of a murder committed in front of his eyes – and he shuddered against his will.

He hadn't wanted to. He could have done it, Yassen had made him prove it at Malagosto, but Shale had made sure he wouldn't have to, and -

"Thank you," Alex said just as quietly and tried to put everything into those words.

Up ahead was the first, faint light of winter dawn. Alex didn't take the time to admire it. Just got in the car with Shale and let the man take the wheel. They followed the winding road around a corner. Behind them, the crematorium vanished from view.

Alex didn't look back.

* * *

Next: Sometimes Alex suspects the debriefings take longer than the assassinations do.


	49. Debriefings

Alex and Shale arrived back at Yassen's place in the Congo for their debriefing seven days after they had left. Alex had slept most of the flight. It wasn't good sleep, but it was rest, and he desperately needed that. That, and about an hour soaking in a bathtub. He really doubted he would get that any time soon.

"Duval's disappearance has been blamed on the French intelligence agencies," was Yassen's first greeting. "You did well."

Something in Alex eased; a tension he hadn't even been aware of. The lingering awareness that it hadn't been enough to kill Duval; they had to have made it look real enough, too. They could still have failed. If they had … Alex didn't doubt Yassen had planned for that, too, but he wasn't about to ask. They had done their job. That was all that mattered.

"Sir," Shale greeted. Alex just nodded in response.

"Your mission report."

Alex had expected that and he had spent a good part of the wait in the airport mentally writing that report. The words came easy now with no real effort required. Shale seemed happy to leave that part to him.

"Everything went according to plan and the intel was solid," Alex began. "Duval went for security in anonymity -"

It took half an hour to finish the report to Yassen's satisfaction, questions included. Large stuff sometimes – had any of Duval's people looked like some of SCORPIA's? - and sometimes things so minor that Alex would have wondered why if it hadn't been Yassen. How heavily armoured had Duval's car been that had arrived to pick him up? How had Duval reacted to the sedative?

Alex knew better than to ask. Instead he answered the questions, no matter how odd, and only stopped when Yassen finally nodded.

"Well done," he said. "Both of you."

"Thank you, sir," Alex said, falling back into old habits. Whatever offer Yassen had made of taking over SCORPIA together, right there and then Alex was still his second in command. Still his subordinate. "Any orders?"

"We wait." He made it sound so simple. Alex knew himself well enough to know it would be everything but. "You do your job to the best of your abilities. Make note of any weaknesses the client's security, but do nothing until you get further orders."

From one extreme to the other. Alex already felt rattled, straight from their isolation in France and back to the middle of a large operation, and the need to keep up appearances wouldn't make it easier.

The harsh truth was that he was out of practice. Shale had killed without blinking, but Alex wasn't him. He was fifteen and sure, he had graduated Malagosto, but he didn't have half a decade as a sniper to back him. He hadn't made a career in one of SCORPIA's combat teams. None of Sagitta thought twice about killing.

The last time Alex had been forced to kill had been Yassen's lesson at Malagosto. Before that, it had been Miami. Alex was a trained assassin but he hadn't had to actually do that job for months. For half a year, if he ignored Yassen's punishment. A part of him had hoped he would never have to do it again. That he would be more valuable as Yassen's second and a trained spy than an assassin, because SCORPIA had plenty of those. And maybe he would have had to kill in the course of his new job but it would still have been different from the cold, efficient way Shale had snapped Duval's neck.

Alex hadn't killed directly this time, not unless someone had a bad reaction to the sedative that he didn't know about, but he had been in charge of the mission, and if Shale hadn't offered to let him handle the darts and taken care of Duval, every last one of those deaths would have been by his own hands, too.

If this was how he reacted to _not_ having to kill, to just being responsible, how would he ever manage control of SCORPIA? Even if they got rid of the parts that Alex refused to accept, it was still a brutal, bloody business. Any weaknesses would be targeted. If Alex wasn't able to have someone killed, he would have no chance of surviving at all.

Did Yassen know what he was thinking? Probably. He knew Alex better than Alex was entirely comfortable with sometimes.

It was all but confirmed when Yassen glanced at Shale. "Dismissed."

The man nodded swiftly and left, closing the door behind him. He wouldn't go too far, Alex knew. They still needed to get back to Rensburg's estate.

Yassen's focus shifted back to Alex in an unspoken question.

"I -" Alex took a steadying breath. "I'm going to make a miserable boss if I can't even handle watching someone else snap a neck."

He had reacted stronger to Shale doing it than Nile, probably because he could afford to do that around Sagitta. Alex had been on his very best behaviour around Nile, and he had been expected to be fine with whatever methods he had to use to get the job done. Shale seemed to see him less as an assassin and more like a fifteen-year-old in way over his head. Nile would have done his best to remove any unfortunate weaknesses like that from Alex. Shale had worked around them instead.

Something flickered through Yassen's eyes. Alex imagined he could almost see the man consider different approaches and discard them one after the other.

"As you're fond of telling me, you are fifteen," Yassen finally settled on. "You never had the mindset for cold-blooded murder. I did the best I could with what I had to work with. Enough, I think, that you could eventually have adapted to the job of an assassin over the course of your contract."

Honesty. Alex was used to Yassen using manipulation when simple orders wouldn't work. This was something new. Alex had given Yassen a list of his conditions, and Yassen was trying in his own way.

"And this?"

"Entirely uncharted territory." Yassen watched him carefully. "In some ways, the position in charge is easier. You will have people to handle things for you. If you must kill by your own hand, it is by choice or because someone in your employ failed at their job. In other ways, it will be far harder, and certainly for someone with your mindset. As one of SCORPIA's operatives, you are given your orders. You do not make those life and death decisions yourself, you are merely their weapon. As the one in charge, those orders will be yours. Someone has crossed you? The final decision of their punishment, of retribution, of damage control will be yours. You will not be able to hold that position and keep your morals intact. Distasteful situations will demand distasteful choices."

Alex knew. He also knew that odds were that in another five or ten years, he would probably even be mostly all right with it. Yassen had done an excellent job getting him to kill. Alex doubted it would be much harder for Yassen to extend the lesson to their possible new career as well.

It hadn't taken torture. All it had taken had been some months of isolation, training that he genuinely enjoyed, and no way out. Stockholm syndrome according to SCORPIA. Alex supposed that would be a lot more effective than pain and punishment would.

"Like Blunt," Alex said on an impulse and regretted it almost immediately. The thought of the man was followed by a flare of anger and the taste of dark, bitter ash in his mouth. Blunt had a job to do and didn't care how many lives he had to throw away to see it done. Alex had just been one more on a long list.

"There is some merit in the comparison," Yassen conceded. "No one in charge of an intelligence agency can afford to be sentimental. The safety of the country will come before the survival of its agents. Blunt has killed few by his own hand but his orders have seen an impressive number of people dead."

It sounded like SCORPIA had a file on Blunt, too, not that Alex was surprised. Maybe he would look it up if he ever got the time. Just out of curiosity.

Alex didn't want to be Blunt. He didn't want to lose all sense of morality. But then, would he have to? Blunt's job was to protect the UK and her interests at any cost. Alex's … would be to run SCORPIA and do it well enough to keep something worse from rising in its place; a careful balancing act of those crimes he could accept, those he had to, and those he couldn't.

"You will not be Blunt," Yassen said and made it clear that Alex's thoughts had been obvious at least to him. "You do not have the personality. Perhaps a decade or two to wear down anything that made you Alex would do the job, but there is little reason to. It would be better, I think, to keep what few morals you could. It would be harder, certainly, but you would remain Alex Rider."

Alex, and not Orion. Whatever Yassen personally thought would be the better option between the two, he would leave the choice to Alex. Acknowledge that he _had_ that choice now. Maybe Yassen would push for his preferred outcome, but he would leave the decision to Alex and not manipulate him into it. Like they had agreed upon.

Yassen did his best to work with Alex's conditions. The least Alex could do was try the same. He knew he would need to be Orion for their plan to work, Yassen needed a partner he could trust without hesitation, and he had agreed to that. Maybe it was time to suck it up and deal, one way or the other, and hope he could live with the price by the end of it. Be Orion for now and maybe, eventually, be Alex again later.

"Back to Rensburg, then?" Alex asked, changing the topic.

Yassen allowed it. He handed Alex a thick folder with two sets of papers. "The recon report from Danube. Make sure your stories match."

Alex nodded, not surprised. He had wondered what they were expected to say when Rensburg wanted to know their conclusions based on their supposed reconnaissance mission but figured Yassen had it under control. It made sense that he had ensure the reconnaissance mission had been carried out, just … not by the people Rensburg expected.

"Does Marcus have permission to share the goals of the assignment with the rest of his team?" Marcus would ask, Alex knew it. The man kept few important secrets from his team and expected the same in return. To have to keep something of that magnitude from them … he wouldn't be happy. Alex would really rather avoid that.

Yassen had probably come to the same conclusion. "Under the usual conditions. It goes no further."

And it wouldn't, Alex trusted that. Marcus didn't keep secrets from his team, but nothing made its way beyond Sagitta itself. Yassen didn't need to spell out the consequences, just like Alex wouldn't need to spell it out for Marcus, either. It was a risk, just like it had been to bring Shale and Marcus in on the plan in the first place, but it was an acceptable one. Marcus functioned better with the full backing of his team. He had been written off as a potential student of Malagosto for his complete inability to work alone. Expecting him to keep secrets of that sort from his team was a disaster waiting to happen.

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed.

Something in Yassen's expression softened fractionally. Alex supposed he had done well, then. "Dismissed."

Alex nodded and left, off to find Shale and return to their client for now.

* * *

By the time the two of them arrived back at Rensburg's estate, they had memorised the file and agreed on a story to fill in any details and add whatever credibility the cover would need. The small details to make it sound legitimate if anyone asked.

Alex doubted they would. Certainly not Sagitta, and Rensburg would only be interested in whether the presence of the CDC and WHO would be a problem.

Rensburg, Alex had noticed, preferred not to be reminded of Alex's age. Beyond his initial objections, he had done his best to ignore it. It still bothered him, Alex could tell, but since Yassen had no intentions of pulling his second in command from the operation, Rensburg had been given no choice but to deal with it. He did so by sticking to nothing but operation-relevant details, probably because that made it less likely he would be reminded just how young Alex was.

Shale went to report to Marcus. Alex went to report to Rensburg. Shale's report would be a lot more interesting than Alex's would, and they both knew it. Neither Yassen nor Alex expected one of Sagitta's members to keep a secret from their commander, and Marcus had plenty of incentive to learn what he could of just what he had managed to get himself and his team tangled up in.

Alex knocked once on the open door.

"Mr Rider," Rensburg greeted him and motioned for him to step inside with a small gesture. "Welcome back. Your findings?"

Alex stood loosely at ease. He had spent the helicopter flight shifting back into operation-mode. He had pushed aside their plans, the knowledge of what exactly Yassen had planned for their client and everyone on his estate, and focused on business as usual. Keeping up appearances.

"Neither team will be a problem. McCain's plague ran its course months ago; the research teams are the last remnants of a much larger presence there. They're wrapping up things, nothing more. Last week, there were less than a dozen victims of the poison and all of them were victims of known sources of the contaminated grains. The CDC plans to move their last remaining personnel in the area by new year, the WHO team is set to leave once no more new cases are reported," Alex reported, quoting Danube's report.

It was a little unnerving to have to rely so completely on their intel but on the other hand, it wasn't that much different from relying on SCORPIA's or Yassen's intel for a job. Yassen had picked the team for a reason. Unless Alex got proof of anything else, he would trust the report was solid.

Rensburg nodded slowly. "You did not draw any unnecessary attention?"

Alex shrugged slightly. "A couple of half-brothers travelling off the beaten track, sir? No one cared. An adult travelling alone might be suspicious, but an adult travelling with a kid isn't. MI6 made good use of that before I quit. SCORPIA appreciates the value of that sort of cover, too."

A flicker of unease. Alex took vindictive pleasure in the tiny victories he could claim.

"You're certain they won't be an issue?" Rensburg asked, ignoring that which he obviously didn't want to deal with.

"As certain as we can be, sir," Alex agreed. "We could remove them, but that would draw unwanted attention."

Another slow nod. "The details," Rensburg ordered.

Alex kept back a sigh and started his report, going through the important details from Danube's reconnaissance mission. They had done a good job. Alex planned to use that to its full extent.

* * *

It took less than an hour for Toka to realise her entertainment was back, and she was waiting outside of the main house when Alex reappeared from Rensburg's office. Apparently she had missed him, because she headbutted his hip hard enough to make him stumble and proceeded to chew on his uniform trousers until he settled down to scratch her.

Maybe it was a little undignified to walk around with hyena-drool on his trousers but Alex didn't really mind.

Krüger appeared from the house, his usual rifle slung over his shoulder, and paused to watch them. He seemed to like Alex. Alex suspected it was because he got along with the hyenas. Krüger liked the hyenas and he approved of those that didn't fear them.

"She understood, I think, that the return of your sniper meant that you had returned as well," the man said. "Likely she smelled you on him and responded to that."

Toka had slumped down, her head in Alex's lap to let him scratch it properly. She was heavier than she looked, mostly muscle and almost fully grown, and the leg that supported most of her weight was getting numb pretty fast. She would be heavier than Alex as an adult. She was already getting there fast.

"I wouldn't be surprised," Alex admitted. "She's pretty smart. They all are. They've behaved?"

He had seen a brief report from Marcus on the week they had been gone. He would get a more detailed one later. Nothing much had happened but it didn't hurt to ask.

Krüger's smile was sharp. "As well-behaved as any predator can be. One cannot fault a hunter for playing with their prey. There are still those that fear them."

And the hyenas knew that and took full advantage of it. They were intelligent enough to know they were trapped, intelligent enough to know their restrictions … and intelligent enough to get even in whatever small ways they could.

Toka stretched her neck to look at Alex and he scratched it without even thinking about it. He couldn't even blame her. Her eyes were sharper than a normal animal's and while they looked sleepy more than anything for now, there was no mistaking the intelligence in them. If he had been in their situation, he would have done what he could to make life miserable for his jailers, too.

Her rumbling sort of purr was more vibration in his body than any real sound and Alex resigned himself to not going anywhere for a while. He saw Krüger leave out of the corner of his eye but didn't really try to nudge Toka away to get up as well. Numb leg aside, he was kind of comfortable.

"Where's your mum, anyway?" he asked, more to fill out the silence than anything else. She wasn't always around but she was usually somewhere nearby. Within hearing range of her offspring, at least.

Probably watching, Alex assumed. Toka was almost an adult but not quite. The only other cub was much younger and was kept close by its mother. Toka had more freedom to explore. At least she was young enough to get easily bored, too, and she got up again before Alex had to wonder just how he was going to get her to move.

She ran off to do … whatever hyenas did when they were on their own, and Alex spent a while getting feeling back in his leg and then wincing at the pins and needles that followed.

"That looked comfortable." Marcus sounded vaguely amused. Alex had heard his approach and didn't startle.

"It was until my leg went numb," Alex admitted. He stretched his legs again and wiggled his toes in the heavy boots. The pins and needles slowly faded.

Marcus nodded. "I got Shale's report. Mission went all right, I hear."

"It did, I'll get you a copy of the detailed report," Alex agreed. He waited a heartbeat. "You up for a check of the estate? You give me the highlight of the past week, and I'll give you the executive summary of the mission?"

 _I can talk, but not here, not this close to outsiders,_ Alex didn't say and didn't need to. Marcus got it just fine.

"You probably had the more exciting week," he said. "Sounds like I get the better part of the deal. Let's start at the east sector. It looks like the hyenas are starting to figure out the antennas are part of what keeps them there. There's a bite mark in the metal you'll want to see."

That didn't sound like an excuse to get them away from the house, either, and Alex paused.

"They bit _into_ the metal?"

Marcus shrugged. "Dented it enough to let the rain get into the bits and pieces on the inside. Adams spotted it. Size looks about right and there's nothing else it really could be. Clever little bastards."

That was … well. Alex didn't quite think 'bad doggie' would do the trick. 'Bad hyena'? What _did_ you say to chastise a genetically engineered killing machine the size and weight of a grown man?

He knew they were intelligent. He knew Molai and her clan weren't happy with being restricted, though they hid it well. He wasn't sure why he was even surprised.

"That's …" Alex trailed off. Unnerving, maybe. Definitely a bad sign. There was redundancy in the system, sure – a second layer of transmitters in the house where the hyenas couldn't enter – but that didn't make it any less unsettling.

How long had it taken them to work out the purpose of the tall, thin antennas? Three weeks? Damn.

"Have you told anyone?" he asked instead as they headed in the direction of the eastern part of the large estate.

Marcus hesitated for a second. It was uncharacteristic enough to make Alex send him a sharp look. "Not yet," he admitted. "I told Adams to stay quiet. Figured we'll let Mr Gregorovich decide if it's something that needs told. It might be useful."

 _Useful for later._

If they had to take down Rensburg's estate and everyone in it and make it look like an attack by a foreign military or intelligence force … having part of the security fail through no fault of their own would be useful. Neither Rensburg nor Krüger would hear a word against the hyenas. Rensburg liked to have some degree of security he didn't need to question the loyalties of. Krüger just plain liked them.

If the animals turned out to be clever enough to circumvent the security set-up … well. That was hardly SCORPIA's fault.

"It might," Alex agreed. "You're right. That'll be his call."

The grass grew taller around them as they moved away from the centre of the grounds. The weather was cloudy but warm and carried the scent of rain. Alex had kind of missed it. France had been too chilly and bleak for someone who had spent most of a year in warm climates. Neither spoke for a while. Then Alex glanced over.

"You have Mr Gregorovich's permission to share the most recent developments with the rest of the team," he said carefully. "They know not to let it carry any further."

It was more Yassen's way of speaking than his own, but it got the message across and was a nice reminder of the man they both reported to.

Marcus nodded slightly. "Yes, sir."

Nice and formal. Alex didn't doubt Sagitta would know the full details by nightfall. They deserved to know what they had managed to get tangled up in, and Marcus didn't cope well with less than the full backing of his team.

They kept up the walk in silence. Through the grass and underneath the canopy of the vivid green trees. Another nice change from France.

"Impressive clusterfuck we've managed to get involved with," Marcus finally said quietly. "You know the odds of success."

"I do," Alex agreed, just as quietly.

"As long as we're on the same page." Was that faint, resigned amusement? Alex couldn't tell. He didn't know Marcus' reason for agreeing with Yassen's crazy plan, didn't know what reason would be good enough to risk his people, and Marcus didn't know Alex's. For now, Alex supposed it really would be enough for Marcus to know that Alex knew the risks as well as he did. That Alex treated it as the deadly serious treason that it was.

Marcus hadn't just gambled his own life but his team's as well and he wanted to know they had at least a chance of success.

There were no real pathways through the rainforest on Rensburg's lands but there were a few faint, trampled paths if one looked close enough. One of them led to another trampled path that circled the grounds, right along the line of antennas.

Eventually they stopped by one of them. Alex knelt by the base of it.

"Adams added a bit of extra water protection to keep the dent from being a problem," Marcus said, "but we haven't patched it up yet."

Alex ran a hand along the surface of the panel. The bite mark was plainly visible as a dent right where the removable panel met the rest of the metal and concrete base of the antenna. Enough to leave just enough of a gap between the two that rain could seep in. Marcus was right, the size about fit. It was certainly large enough. Alex wondered about the logistics. How had the hyena even managed? Probably with a lot of determination, considering how wide it would have had to open its mouth to manage. He was slightly less surprised at the dent that had resulted. The metal wasn't that thick and the hyenas' bite could crush bone, but still.

"You documented it?" he asked.

"Photos and a brief report," Marcus agreed. "We're keeping an eye on the rest to see if it happens anywhere else. Adams is looking into something a little more durable before they manage to cause some serious damage, but I figure we'll wait for Mr Gregorovich's go-ahead before we do anything else."

Alex nodded. "Send it to him. He'll want to know."

At best, it would be something very useful for their eventual attack on Rensburg's estate. At worst, it would at least be a mild curiosity. Yassen had found the hyenas interesting before. Alex imagined he would find that sort of thing interesting, too.

If nothing else, it was a very good reminder that however well-behaved those hyenas were for the most part, they weren't tame. They were trapped predators and intelligent enough to resent it.

Marcus nodded. "France?" he asked quietly.

"Duval is dead," Alex replied, keeping up his part of the bargain though he didn't doubt Shale had delivered a full report already. "It's been blamed on French intelligence. Now we just wait."

"Well, that we're used to." Resigned and pragmatic. Much like Alex's job consisted mostly of moments of adrenaline and raw terror in between long stretches of nothing, a combat team like Sagitta was used to a lot of waiting, too. Waiting for the target, waiting to spot a weakness, waiting for a lot of things. They were used to it but that didn't mean that Marcus liked it.

Alex got up. Brushed the bits of dead leaves and dirt off of his trousers. "That we're used to," he agreed. "Let's go back. I'm hungry."

Marcus snorted, a faintly amused sound. But he didn't comment and they walked back in comfortable silence as Alex simply took in the warm forest and tropical climate again.

* * *

Next: Alex never thought getting involved in treason would involve so much waiting.


	50. Countdown

Alex Rider had never really appreciated the stress of waiting until he had found himself at Malagosto.

Until then, waiting had been a source of restless boredom but little else. Then he had been stuck in the horrible position of knowing he was about to go through resistance to interrogation but with no idea of when, and he had learned just how awful the wait could be. That lesson had been repeated several times later on – the seemingly endless hours before his first assignment, the long flight back from Santa Catarina – and now he got another reminder.

The wait was unnerving. Keeping up the constant act, being the same person he had always been around Rensburg and his people, doing his job … and all the while just waiting for the moment when Yassen would let him know it was time to do an entirely different job instead.

The vaccine had been distributed to everyone by the time Alex and Shale had returned, but it would be another three and a half weeks before it was guaranteed to be fully effective for the last group.

There was a definite countdown now. Rensburg couldn't risk unleashing the virus while his own people were still vulnerable to it, but once the vaccine was effective …

Alex could only hope that ASIS wouldn't wait to act against Chase. Could only hope that if the plan got delayed, Yassen had backup plans.

Sagitta was not an undercover team but in some ways they would have to be now. Like Alex, they did their jobs, kept up appearances, and looked for weaknesses wherever they could find them. It was not their usual sort of assignment but they would have to learn.

And not just for this, Alex realised. They were as tangled up in Yassen's plans now as Alex was. They would need to learn to play their role, to remain nothing more than just another one of SCORPIA's combat teams, because if they couldn't, someone would get suspicious. And even if that didn't happen, Yassen might just step in himself to fix the potential security risk if he decided they didn't keep up that act well enough.

Marcus had to know that. The rest of the team, too. They weren't stupid. Alex's fondness of them would only protect them so far.

They had done a good job so far, though. They had already had a solid file on the security on Rensburg's estate since they were responsible for a good part of it, and they filled in the blanks with slow, relentless certainty. Sagitta wasn't an undercover team, but they were very good hunters.

December marched on. Christmas inched closer. At least there were no Christmas decorations, which Alex was grateful for. It was strange enough to realise it was December without adding a bunch of happy decorations to the mix. Christmas angels, Santa, and a couple of vials of lethal virus draped in ribbons? Alex was much happier without it.

He was starting to have a horrible suspicion about the timing, though. Maybe it was on accident, but Rensburg seemed to have become aware that the last round of vaccine would be fully effective right around the end of the Christmas season and had become increasingly settled on that time frame for the distribution of the virus. Christmas itself was a little too risky if the virus spread faster than expected, but New Year? New Year would be safe.

How long would it take ASIS to act? Alex had very little to compare with and no real idea. Move fast and risk the intel being faulty? Wait and make sure it was reliable intel but risk it getting too old? Just how much of a grudge did the Australian intelligence service hold against an enemy that used to be one of its own?

Alex wanted to do something but knew just as well that he couldn't. If he tried, he would ruin everything. It wasn't even a test from Yassen, some way to make sure Alex wouldn't try something like Santa Catarina again. It was just coincidence and an unintentional test of Alex's determination to stick with the plan.

He did his best to hide his restlessness but it was apparently obvious to those who knew him. Yassen never commented but Sagitta did.

"You look like you're ready to climb the walls," Marcus told him. "Go feed that hyena of yours."

That didn't help much on Alex's anxiety, but Toka did appreciate the sandwich.

"I'm sure the boss'll be happy to beat you up in the guise of training," Adams suggested. "That'll knock that energy right back down."

Yassen undoubtedly would, and Alex was honestly tempted for a moment. Then common sense prevailed, though he did put it on the mental list of emergency measures. For now he had enough in his daily training.

Alex distracted himself by following Yassen's instructions: find out everything. They knew a lot already, but he still kept an eye on security, on surveillance, on Rensburg's guards and staff, and on Rensburg himself.

It wasn't all that different from what he had done during his time at Yu's home. Alex was honest enough to himself to acknowledge that like it or not, he was perfect for that sort of job. Maybe not entirely trusted by any client, his high position with SCORPIA would ruin that, but still underestimated in a way that an adult wouldn't be. Maybe someone wouldn't trust him to be entirely loyal to anyone but SCORPIA, but they wouldn't expect him to be able to run a second assignment right under their noses, either.

No one else seemed to notice the approach of the holiday season, no one but Rensburg and Alex himself. Come Christmas, it would be a full year since Alex last talked to Jack, a brief, few minutes under SCORPIA's watchful eye. SCORPIA, and the CIA, and god knew who else. He wondered what she was doing now. Maybe they had snow in Washington. It was the time for that, wasn't it?Alex didn't know but it was a nice thought, Jack out in the snow and just enjoying life with her family. On top of the equator, the weather never really changed much. Maybe it rained a little more some months. Maybe a little less in others. Alex kind of missed actual seasons.

It was also the kind of thought that was too dangerous to linger on and he shoved it aside again. If – when – their plan succeeded, maybe he could approach her again. He was a killer already, would be even more of a cold-blooded one by the end of this, but maybe she would still listen. Maybe she wouldn't mind talking again.

Alex blamed his mood on the season and threw himself into training and planning instead.

He knew the guard shifts already, knew the patrol patterns, and knew the people. Knew their habits and where they slacked a little on security, where they cut the occasional corner, and he tried and failed to ignore the fact that these were people he _knew._

Not particularly well, since Rensburg's people stuck to their own and SCORPIA's did the same, but well enough. Names, personalities, the occasional idle chat over breakfast or dinner. Yassen's orders in Miami had been to leave no survivors, but Alex had been spared the bloodier parts of it. There would be no such leniency this time.

Alex and Sagitta knew the people, knew the shifts, and knew a lot of the technology. They knew the basics of the system that kept the hyenas contained, and Adams had spent a good while getting to know the technology behind it as well. They were familiar with the sensors that kept a watch on the perimeter of the estate and knew they were faulty more often than not, never meant to handle something as humid and full of life as the rainforest.

What they didn't know – well, weren't supposed to know, anyway – was the rest of it. Rensburg wasn't as paranoid as Yassen had made him out to be to the rest of the executive board, but he was still a cautious man. Alex didn't blame him. It was a sensible precaution, everything considered.

There was surveillance inside the buildings, very carefully hidden and set up to allow for very few blind spots. It had taken scanners and a lot of time and patience to map every last one of those cameras without drawing attention to the fact. There was surveillance outside, too, though those were a combination of normal and infrared cameras. Well-hidden, but not quite as well as the ones inside. They were larger and heavier by necessity, and a lot easier to spot.

There were additional defences in the private areas of Rensburg's home, and they were pretty decent ones, too. The doors would take some serious force to break down, the windows were bulletproof, there were – to Adams' best estimate – redundant backup generators somewhere beneath the main building, and the heart of the building was clearly meant to limit the spread of fire enough to leave plenty of time to do something about it. Rensburg's personal guards trusted no one, and while Alex had been alone with Rensburg on several occasions, he knew that meant nothing with bodyguards right outside the door. If he had attacked the man, he would never have made it out alive.

Taking the time to really watch and observe also made him aware of a few other things he could have slept a lot better not knowing. He knew the small clan of hyenas were intelligent. He knew they played games to unnerve the people that still weren't used to them, he knew that they were looking for a way out, knew that they were intelligent enough to work out at least some of the pieces of the puzzle, but he had never had the time or attention to spare to really just sit down and observe.

What he found wasn't exactly comforting.

"They're watching us," he told Marcus bluntly when he got the man alone in the afternoon a few days later.

"They are," the man agreed. "Me, Krüger, the client. You to a lesser degree, though they're a little less creepy about it. They've started to watch Adams, too, the last few weeks."

The people in charge, except for Adams. The only reason Alex could think of for that particular change implied a little more rational thought behind their actions than he was entirely comfortable with. "The antenna?"

Marcus shrugged. "That's our theory, me and Adams. Can't prove it, of course, but that's the only thing that's changed."

Best case, Alex figured, the hyenas had picked up Adams' scent on the antenna after he fixed up their attempt at sabotage and that had drawn their attention. Worst case, they were intelligent enough to some degree to connect Adams' scent with the antenna getting fixed. They didn't understand what the antenna was actually for, but they had worked out it was part of what kept them there and had the intelligence to realise that Adams' ability to fix it made him a threat to their potential freedom as well.

… Absolutely worst case, Alex realised a second later, it had been a test. A trial run to see what would happen if they did try to damage the thing, just to see what other threats would appear as a result. What other threats they would need to take out if they wanted to escape. If that was the case, that implied an ability to reason and plan that was enough to send a chill down Alex's spine.

"Anyone else knows?"

"Adams," Marcus replied. "Krüger's observant; I think he knows but doesn't care. He'll probably trust the bracelet and his own experience to keep him safe. Can't imagine the client's got a clue. Not much we can do about it, though, so no point in worrying. The client's security doesn't look like they've noticed, and the rest of the team's got enough to worry about. For all we know, it could just be a way to make us twitch. Wouldn't be the first time. I'm not going to put everyone into high alert for something like that. They already know to keep an eye on those things and they still do. Not much else we can do except trust the bracelets'll do their job."

Trust the bracelets, except the thin band of metal around Alex's wrist suddenly felt a lot more fragile than before.

You had to get at least a few seconds of warning to use those bracelets. They weren't made to punish the hyenas automatically. You had to activate it.

Alex had seen Molai and her clan hunt. In the tall grass … they could get close enough unseen that all they would need would be those few seconds to tear out someone's throat or bite off their entire hand. Glance away for a few seconds and you would be dead with no chance to ever use that last line of defence.

The estate suddenly felt a lot more dangerous than it had a few minutes ago. Alex almost regretted asking. He still couldn't quite keep his mouth shut.

"What do you mean, 'less creepy', anyway?"

"Less like they're wondering how fast they can kill you," Marcus clarified. Sometimes Alex appreciated the man's straightforwardness. Now was not one of those times. "Can't decide if it's because of your age or because you've become the designated entertainment for one of them. Could even be because they've noticed the client gets uneasy around you. Depends on just how clever they actually are."

And they were very, very clever, Alex knew. He didn't know how many test subjects Dr Cabrera had gone through to get a good result, how many that had ended up disposed of because they didn't meet some arbitrary standard or another, but those hyenas – and whatever else the man had created, because Alex would bet good money that his business wasn't restricted to hyenas – had been carefully guarded in Argentina. Cabrera's people had known exactly what they were dealing with and never once let down their guard, not even with the hyenas in cages.

It shouldn't have been a surprise that the hyenas were clever enough to work out the major obstacles to freedom. They hadn't had a chance in Argentina, but Rensburg's estate … that one had weaknesses and an owner who very obviously underestimated just what his new guard dogs were capable of. Because whatever else those hyenas might be, they definitely weren't pets.

"So if the estate came under attack …"

 _When we attack,_ Alex didn't say. When the whole place descended into chaos and everyone was too busy focusing on human threats and not animal ones.

Another shrug. "Fuck if I know. Maybe they'll take their chance and go after the client's people. Maybe they'll target us. Hopefully they'll do the sensible thing and stay clear of it. We've got no way to tell until it happens. I think they're smart enough not to attack a group of people, though. Too many variables. Too many targets that might have time to trigger those bracelets."

If those bracelets would even work in an actual attack. The effect on the hyenas had to be painful or they wouldn't respect them so much, but would it work fast enough to stop one? Alex certainly doubted it would be able to do much against two hundred pounds of animal already in motion.

It all came down to how intelligent they were. Hyenas were smart already. With genetic engineering on top of that …

… It wasn't a nice thought. Alex shoved it aside for now.

"I'll let Mr Gregorovich know."

Not that there was much they could do about it. Just watch and hope for the best. And maybe plan for the worst.

Marcus nodded, the topic done for now. But it remained in the back of Alex's mind, as a constant, nagging presence.

* * *

Yassen did not seem overly bothered by the report. Alex wasn't sure if it was the man's usual ability to show no emotion whatsoever or just a genuine lack of concern. Alex could read him better than most, but on some days even that wasn't all that much.

"I think it all comes down to how intelligent they are," Alex finished. "We're assuming they're clever enough to know what they're doing, but we don't know for sure just what we're dealing with."

"Any caged predator will look for a way out," Yassen said. "This cage is invisible but a cage nonetheless. It does not take uncommon intelligence to work out where the cage ends and search for a way around it. The antennas are the only unnatural structures there. They would eventually have become a target."

"They tried to bite off the panel."

"They targeted the weakest spot."

"Adams patched it up." Kind of. Enough, anyway.

"And in the process taught them that the spot was a point of interest." Yassen looked faintly amused. "They learn and adapt. They're problem solvers. You may not have any intention of teaching them, but they learn nonetheless."

"So how intelligent are they?" The big question, and the one Alex desperately wanted to know.

"An interesting question. Based on their creator's reports, intelligent enough to be a threat, but perhaps not as intelligent as you believe them to be." The amusement vanished. "Take off their leash and they will respond as what they are. Lethal predators that have been caged and just found a way out. They will be a threat to everyone. Keep that security flawless. It is not worth the risk to add the additional, unpredictable variable they would become, not even for clean-up after the attack. They are not intelligent enough to work out what keeps them trapped, but they are intelligent enough to work out what matters to their jailers. Do not credit them with intent that isn't there, but do not let down your guard, either."

"Yes, sir." There wasn't much else Alex could say to that. He hoped Yassen was sure about his information, because both Alex and Marcus were fumbling around pretty blind when it came to those hyenas. All they could do was assume the same intelligence as a human and hope they were wrong. If Yassen was right, they were.

"Your thoughts on an attack on the estate?" Yassen asked. Alex had been given plenty of time to consider it. Yassen would expect an answer that reflected that.

"An attack at night would be best," Alex replied. "There are a lot fewer people awake at night and the night shift tends to get a little lax. For the guards outside the buildings, something like the sedative we used for Duval might work best." Alex swallowed but continued before he could change his mind. "Something that'll kill and not just knock them out. It's a lot quieter than even suppressors would be. The needles might also go through body armour where bullets would be a problem. Nobody wears the heavy-duty bullet resistant stuff, it's too hot and humid and isn't necessary. We're eight people. Take out the guards on the night shift, then focus on the buildings. Breach and clear. Adams is working on surveillance. He should be able to keep it looped and let us use the cameras instead."

The buildings would be the harder part, but Alex didn't need to say that. They knew the layouts, though, and once they got access to the surveillance cameras, that should hopefully get them a decent idea of the actual interior of the places they didn't have access to as well.

It would be bloody and brutal. Alex didn't like to think about it, but it was one of those facts of life he had learned to accept. Sagitta might be a hunter-killer team that focused more on the 'hunter' than 'killer' part, but they all had military background and additional training with SCORPIA's people. They all knew how to clear a room efficiently. Officially it was 'breach and clear', though Marcus favoured 'frag and clear' instead.

Alex remembered his lessons from Malagosto well, even – or especially – those he wanted to remember the least. The lectures on weapons of various sorts, the different grenades included, had been thorough and graphic.

Malagosto didn't train soldiers, but its instructors did run a number of different exercises. Alex had been part of a room clearing exercise twice. Enough to hopefully not be completely useless if it came to that.

"The easiest, safest way to see the building cleared. Synchronise the attack, give no one time to respond or alert the rest," Yassen agreed.

"And the darts for the guards outside?" Alex asked.

"Somewhat slower to kill than bullets are," Yassen replied. "But they will kill all the same."

There was something in Yassen's voice, somewhere between lecture and soft reprimand.

"I know," Alex said, more defensively than he wanted to.

"Do you? Or is it easier to imagine that you did not kill them when you do not see the blood? A sedative made for something larger than a human will work well enough, but it will be a death sentence should any of your team accidentally be injected with it. A bullet might leave only a wound. Do not forget that even the strongest sedatives will still leave some seconds of consciousness. Enough for a trained soldier to target their attacker."

Alex didn't respond. He wanted to remind Yassen that he had promised not to manipulate him, but it wasn't actually manipulation. Alex had asked for his opinion and been given it.

Was it easier to ignore that he had killed people when he didn't see the results of a bullet into flesh and bone in graphic detail? Of course it was, and part of him acknowledged that. The targets would still be dead; he could just … maybe tell himself they weren't. Pretend it hadn't happened.

A weakness, he knew, and one they couldn't afford. Yassen needed Orion to do the job he had been trained for. He needed a reliable partner. Not Alex, who would risk his life to work around Yassen's orders on a stupid, impulsive idea, but Orion.

Sagitta would handle most of it, but another gun would still make a world of difference with that small of a team in that kind of situation. Alex had to do his job, and he would never forgive himself if staying out of it got someone he cared about hurt or killed. Wouldn't forgive himself if one of Sagitta got killed through friendly fire or plain bad luck if they used the darts instead of bullets. He would suck it up and cope. Even if that meant killing. People he knew this time and not just strangers.

"Guns for the outside, then," Alex said, resignation setting in. "The suppressors should give us a chance to handle it reasonably quiet."

"And knives when possible," Yassen agreed.

Another weapon Alex preferred to ignore when he could. Another luxury he wouldn't have anymore. Slower than guns but not by much when wielded by skilled hands, and conveniently quiet as well. They needed that element of surprise.

"Right." Alex did his best to ignore the memory of Yassen's punishment at Malagosto and the heavy combat knife he had given Alex to use.

Gun, knives … fragmentation grenades. Sagitta favoured the practical methods, just as Yassen did. Concussion grenades were an option but they liked to be thorough and Yassen wanted no survivors.

"It'll be another couple of days before Adams has surveillance completely under our control." It could have been done a lot faster but they didn't want to risk anything. "If Rensburg wants to release the virus at New Year …"

"We will cut it close," Yassen acknowledged. "For now, there is nothing else we can do but wait. If it becomes a concern, we will re-evaluate our approach."

He didn't mention any alternatives to the plan. Alex didn't ask. He had made his concerns known and that was all he could do for now.

Yassen trusted Alex to do his job. Alex would just have to trust Yassen to do his, too.

* * *

Back at Rensburg's estate, Alex kept up his role to the best of his ability. He sent Marcus off with Shale, Mace, and Krüger again on a three-day reconnaissance mission to get better intel on the mine they had chosen. Not just enough intel to decide on the best mine for the job, but enough to actually carry out the plan as well.

Alex didn't want to and desperately hoped they wouldn't have to, but he had to keep up the act. Time was running out and he had to make it look real. They couldn't afford any suspicions. If Rensburg wanted to keep his unspoken deadline of New Year to release the virus, Alex and Sagitta needed thorough intel to carry it out.

Alex spent the evening before the reconnaissance mission doing over their existing intel with Marcus. Alex himself would stay behind this time, not that he minded.

The photos from the mine were as raw and unforgiving as the first time he had seen them. Not careful photojournalism or the skilful work of professionals but military efficiency and all the more brutal for it.

Security, entrances and exits, the different approaches, the number of armed people, the sort of weapons they carried … and in between, on accident more than anything, the glimpses of children even younger than Alex, covered in mud and working next to adults doing the exact same work. The endless brown shades of the open mine, of soil and dirt and mud and filthy water. Tools, worn and broken and repaired; makeshift pathways and unstable stairs and a few bits of shelter.

And unless Alex did something about it, unless Yassen's plan worked, most of those people would be dead because one man had too much money and didn't care at all how many innocents would die in some insane attempt at revenge.

"Do you think we can pull this off?" Alex finally asked when the photos and the estimates of the spread of the infection and number of dead became too much.

Marcus looked thoughtful. "We've handled worse," he said. "I'd prefer more people on our side but we'll make do with what we have. Yeah, I think we can do this."

"A lot of the guards are former military." Former military and pretty good at their job still as far as Alex could tell.

"Good guards," Marcus agreed, "but bad soldiers. They've been slacking. It's a cushy assignment and they spend most of their time dealing with locals who didn't know to stay away and the occasional criminals. Not trained attackers. I'm sure they were damn good soldiers once, but you use those skills or eventually you lose them. You see it with some of SCORPIA's combat teams, too. We stay in better shape, sure, or we know the consequences, but some of them get comfortable. Lazy. They get used to working security for clients or some operative or another or being backup for operations, and eventually they start to lose their edge. They spend too much time doing nothing and not enough in combat zones. This'll be good for us, too. Help us keep our edge."

Alex's lips twitched against his will. "So you're telling me I need to find another team to back me up if I get sent off to Hawaii or something?"

Marcus barked a laugh. "Hell, no. We'll just make sure not to get lazy." He paused. "It won't be pretty but yeah, we'll get it done. We had Danube in Miami, sure, but Ramos' guards were better and they were on high alert. Do this right, and we'll take out the night shift without raising any alarms and kill most of the rest in their beds. I don't think we can do it without taking some fire, but it should be pretty limited. You'll need to handle Rensburg and his bodyguards, you know that building better than any of us, but we'll handle the rest."

Maybe because that was their job. Maybe because they had done it often enough before. Maybe because they knew how to work as a team. Or maybe because they seemed to try to shelter Alex when they could and this was one of those times.

Alex would still need to kill at least four people in cold blood, people he _knew_ , but it was much kinder than it could have been.

As they packed up the files and Marcus left to prepare the last, few things for the mission, part of Alex wondered about the sort of career where four murders were the sort of job a small part of him actually felt thankful for compared to the alternatives.

A much larger part of him resolutely pushed the thought aside. Whatever it took, that was what he had agreed to. For now he needed to be Orion. And Orion was a killer.

* * *

A/N: There's one chapter left in this arc, and then I'll see if it fits with a third interlude after that. So any requests you want me to give a shot (no guarantees, but I'll try), you should probably mention now.

Next: Merry Christmas, Alex Rider.


	51. The Arrow

Marcus, Mace, and Shale returned from the reconnaissance mission along with Krüger three days later with a thick file on the mine that had been chosen for ground zero of the infection. They were filthy and tired and had a number of scratches and bruises.

They all went more or less straight to bed after a shower and slept for twelve hours straight. Alex wondered just how long it had been since they had last slept properly and decided he probably didn't want to ask.

Alex was summoned to Yassen's home around noon the following day. Christmas had arrived, ominous and inevitable, and Alex had no idea if he was about to be told that the plan had gone wrong or if everything was finally, horribly ready to kick off.

The truth was somewhere in the middle. Alex had a pretty good idea that not everything had gone to plan based on Yassen's expression alone. It was confirmed the moment the man spoke.

"ASIS made their move. Chase escaped. I obviously overestimated their ability to handle a simple assassination." Yassen's voice was tight and there was something dark and ugly in his eyes.

Displeased. Very, very displeased. Yassen Gregorovich wasn't one to show his emotions much and Alex had learned to be careful the few times when he did. It was bad news more often than not. In this case, Yassen's gamble had probably cost him most of the information he'd had on Chase. Most of it – maybe even all of it – would be useless now. No wonder the man was annoyed.

Alex was almost tempted to point out that assassinations probably weren't ASIS' main area of expertise but knew better than to open his mouth and say it out loud. Yassen had been certain Chase would have died one way or the other, but Alex wondered just how certain that had been in retrospect. MI6 had caught Julia Rothman alive. Why wouldn't ASIS try the same with Brendan Chase, lingering resentment or not?

Alex didn't ask where Nile was. Hopefully still in Lagos. Chase seemed to prefer to have his second in command elsewhere, handling what he didn't have time for himself. Nile wasn't a good person, but Alex wasn't really much of a good person anymore, either, these days. A part of him genuinely _liked_ Nile.

"The client's estate?" Yassen continued, and Alex knew that there was only one answer the man wanted to hear. Thankfully, Alex could give it truthfully.

"We're as ready as we can be." They had been since Marcus and the others returned. They were almost out of time and they all knew it. Maybe Sagitta didn't have the same soft spot for civilians as Alex did but they had no lost love for biological weapons, vaccine or not.

Yassen nodded. For a moment, Alex expected to hear the order given – _strike tonight_ – and it would have been a tight job with that short of a notice but they could have done it.

"Tomorrow night," Yassen decided, and Alex was grateful both for the reprieve and the slight bit more time to prepare. "We'll coordinate times and transportation."

They would need to disappear immediately after. Lingering was a risk. Thankfully the team was small enough to only need one helicopter. Alex would have to assume that Yassen's pilot was trustworthy. They had managed to keep Danube out of it, but whatever pilot got sent to Rensburg's estate after the attack would be able to piece the puzzle together if they really wanted to. It would just be a little too convenient that Alex and his team needed to be extracted right after such an attack, and all the more so because nobody would be shooting at them.

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed, already mentally going over what would need to be done.

Another slight nod, and then cool, blue eyes focused on him.

"No survivors. Account for everyone. Make it look convincing."

Alex knew those orders already, and Yassen knew it, too. It still didn't hurt to repeat it, Alex supposed. It wasn't a lack of trust, just a very high-stakes gamble. If they messed up, if even one survivor could pinpoint the attackers as SCORPIA's own …

"Yes, sir," he repeated.

Yassen's expression softened slightly. "Good. Dismissed, Alex."

Alex. Not Orion. And something in him felt a little better for that.

* * *

Theodoros van Rensburg's estate was built for luxury first and security second and certainly hadn't ever been designed for needing to defend against a skilled military force. It wasn't a death trap, and part of it had very nice security, but there were still a number of weaknesses in the design that would be useful to someone who knew the place.

The main house was situated centrally on the grounds. There were smaller buildings off to the side; the largest two of which housed the staff. The smaller ones were storage. The only people that actually lived in the main house were Rensburg himself and his bodyguards.

That sort of set-up made Alex and Sagitta's job much easier.

There was security, of course, but that didn't mean much when they lived in those exact buildings themselves. Access was no problem, and Adams' time spent picking surveillance apart meant that they would have no problem with that, either.

The main problem was timing. Most of the rooms were meant for one or two people. Rank came with privilege and people like Alex and Marcus each had their own, decent-sized ones while the rest of Sagitta shared three. Krüger's was closer to a small apartment, based on what they had managed to get from surveillance.

It left a lot of rooms to handle and no matter what they did, someone would be alerted by the noise. The locks were decent but not impressive; probably chosen to match the same sort of almost colonial safari style as the rest of the place. They could pick the locks but that would take time they didn't have. Small, well-placed bits of explosive would handle them but would wake up everyone in the vicinity, too.

Then again, Alex acknowledged, so would the fragmentation grenades that would follow.

They would need to consider the most dangerous targets and take those out first. The soldiers in charge. Krüger and his immediate subordinates. They would be able to focus on the rest afterwards. They had a good idea of the people in the various rooms and the surveillance cameras cleared up any doubt. Outside of shift changes or the odd night-time operation, there was no traffic in the hallways at night, and with two people on the team trained in demolition, it wouldn't take long to wire up every door there.

Get clear, blow them open, and move fast. Fragmentation grenades in the initial target rooms, followed by a quick check to make sure everyone in the room was dead. Go on to the next rooms and repeat the procedure. They would have the element of surprise on their side for the first round of rooms. If they moved fast enough, they would keep it. Cut the lights and use night vision instead, and they would have the heavy and almost impenetrable darkness on their side as well. Between that and the chaos of being woken up by explosive charges, there would be little organised resistance.

Ramos' home in Miami had been a flat-out attack and active combat. This would closer to a massacre and Alex knew it. And he would be right in the middle of it. Not on the outskirts, guarding their target, but right in the killing itself.

Marcus had thought up the plan and hadn't even hesitated. All Alex could do was agree and get Yassen's go-ahead, too. SCORPIA didn't pay their combat teams to have qualms or morals. They paid them to get the job done. Just like their operatives. Alex had seen Sagitta's mission records. SCORPIA didn't use their combat teams for security outside of operations. They used them to make a point, when something absolutely, positively had to die and collateral damage didn't matter.

"You'll be fine," Marcus told him as they prepared the last few things. He would be in charge, Alex following his orders for the attack. "Training will take over. Just take them out fast and focus on not getting shot. I'm not explaining to Mr Gregorovich why his second in command got killed being stupid."

That was Marcus-speak for 'Watch your back and be careful'. Alex only barely kept from answering with an instinctive 'Yes, sir'.

It did nothing for his anxiety, though. The nerves lingered and Alex spent the day switching between restless energy and overwhelming dread. He did his job but he had a hard time focusing on it.

It was the day before Christmas, but no one in the compound celebrated it. The food was a bit nicer but that was all. There was still work to do, still preparations to handle. Staring at the rainforest beyond the grounds, Alex thought he understood. Rensburg had lost his wife and son. Alex wouldn't imagine that sort of pain ever went away, much less when the reminder of the loss was at its strongest. Birthdays. Anniversaries. … Christmas.

Alex still thought the man was a complete psychopath, but this one thing he did understand.

Alex knew he should catch some rest while he could but knew just as well he wouldn't be able to sleep even if he tried. He checked his weapons, checked them again, and when he finally 'retired' for the night well after dinner, he locked the door behind him and brought out his combat uniform.

It made him look older. Harsher. It wasn't the uniform of a unit working security but of a team of soldiers used to combat.

It made him look like Orion.

It was well after midnight when they made their move. The estate was silent, most windows dark. The night shift had been on duty for several hours already, and most others were asleep.

 _'Twas the night before Christmas -_

The thought appeared unbidden and unwanted, Jack's favourite Christmas poem, and Alex showed the thought aside. He didn't manage the same with the sudden, sharp reminder of her; of Christmas trees and warmth and _family -_

\- And he took a shuddering breath and focused on the present. His job. People that depended on him getting it right. On him being Orion for the time and not Alex Rider.

He let instincts take over and followed along in the darkness, away from the buildings.

Sagitta knew the guard schedules. They knew the patrol routes, they knew where the guards lingered, knew the best places to strike. It would be a combination of guns and more up close and personal weapons. Gun where they couldn't avoid it and knives when possible. They knew when security relaxed. They knew where the guards got a little lazier than they should be. They would handle the ones that could be taken out silently first and finish with the ones that would get a little noisier. With some luck, the muted sound from the suppressors would be far enough away from the main estate that it would be drowned out by any sounds inside the buildings.

No one spoke. They all knew their job and moved silently in patterns they had planned days in advance.

They vanished into the tall grass and the rainforest, away from the lights of the buildings.

Alex followed the curve of the main gravel road until he got within sight of the gate by the entrance and the two guards there. He easily climbed the low, dark garage that had been hidden away mostly out of sight of the road and settled down where the roof was reasonably flat.

Set up his rifle, took a slow breath, and tried to let the tension in his body ease with each exhale. He could see both guards from that location, had chosen the spot specifically for that, and he kept an eye on them through the scope.

Alex knew them, both of them. Knew their names, knew that one had a family, a sister and nieces and nephews that he helped support, knew the other was former career military and a nice, friendly sort, and he forced himself to ignore it. He had a job to do. People who relied on him. And if he screwed up, it might not only cost him Sagitta but likely also Yassen as well as any chance of stopping Rensburg.

Eventually Marcus' voice in his headset cut through the silence.

" _Everyone in position?"_

Alex listened as each of the team checked in, the order familiar, and finally added his own confirmation at the end of it.

"Orion, in position."

The wait was over, the last few seconds ticking down as they all waited for Marcus to speak again.

" _Ten seconds."_

Steady, even breaths, calm heartbeat, watch the two guards through the scope, ignore the dread and anxiety and _guilt -_

" _-hree, two, one -"_

Alex pulled the trigger and the first guard collapsed. He shifted his focus immediately, spotted the other, fired -

\- And the second figure collapsed as well, even as the same scene repeated itself several other places on the vast grounds. They had to leave no time for warnings. No time to realise what was going on.

" _Status?"_

A second, two -

" _Mace, target down."_

More voices followed, and each confirmation made something in Alex ease even as he knew it meant that someone – multiple someones, in some cases – had been killed.

"Orion," he finally said when Ivey had added his brief report, "targets down."

Something in the words settled dark and heavy in his chest. Two more victims to his count so far. There would be plenty more by the end of the night if everything went according to plan.

Alex made his way to the edge of the roof and jumped down again, rifle slung across his back. He knew his instructions – back to the buildings, keep an eye on everything – and moved quietly across the grounds. Not as silent or graceful as Yassen but still good enough to be effectively invisible in the darkness.

He met up with the others just outside of the circle of warm light that was Rensburg's estate. Everyone looked fine, but he had expected that. Someone would have mentioned something otherwise.

"Staff quarters," Marcus said. "You all know the plan. Orion, the client."

The team split into two without any further instructions needed and headed in opposite directions. For a moment, Alex was alone. Then he took a steadying breath and approach the main building. He trusted Adams still had surveillance under control and would warn them of any danger. Trusted that they had taken as much as they could into account.

Sheltered by a broad tree, Alex waited. It was mere minutes but it felt like an eternity longer. Get in, wire up the doors. Detonate.

" _North building ready."_ Mace, Alex recognised.

The seconds stretched on. The world was still around him, like it was holding its breath as well. It was expected; the second building was slightly bigger and had more rooms, but the wait stretched on forever. Finally the silence was broken again, this time by Jarek.

" _South building ready."_

Alex could see nothing near the buildings but he hadn't expected to. They knew to stay out of sight.

" _Detonation in twenty seconds, on my mark."_ Marcus again. _"Three, two, one, mark."_

Somewhere in the buildings the countdown had started. The team would be clear. Now it was just waiting. Alex followed the countdown in his head, doing his best to keep it even. He was still a little fast and hit zero a second before the timers did.

A number of things happened simultaneously. Sharp explosions cut through the night. The lights on the entire estate went out. The primary backup generator should have started automatically in case of power failure but this wasn't really one, just some careful sabotage of several systems hours before. Security still worked. The antennas still worked. Surveillance was still online, though useless in the dark with only the outside cameras set up for infrared vision. The hyenas were still leashed. Even if the generator had kicked in, it would have done nothing to fix the problem.

For long seconds nothing moved, the estate completely still. Then the first flash of light followed and windows shattered under the force of a fragmentation grenade, several others mere seconds behind in rooms further down the hallways.

Alex heard the roar from the explosive, any suppressed gunshots lost in the noise, but didn't stay to watch the rest. He had his own job now.

At least he wouldn't see the effects of those grenades up close and personal as they cleared the rooms. Not yet, anyway. That made his own task marginally easier, too. The knowledge of what he could have been doing instead. He let instincts take over, let months of Yassen and Malagosto's training sweep away the nerves and dread and hesitation, and allowed himself to sink into Orion's cold, sharp mindset.

Alex Rider had tried to stop Graff's drug on Santa Catarina, and Alex Rider had failed. He had the chance to stop Rensburg's plan now and he wasn't going to make the same mistakes again. Against the lives of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands – millions, maybe – the deaths of a few dozen people didn't matter. Against that, Alex had no excuse not to grasp the chance he had been given, and if that meant getting his hands dirty, then he had done that often enough before.

The hallways in the main building were the eerie green of his night vision goggles. There were no movements. The hallways sounded silent, too, but that could as easily be because any sound was lost in the muted noise of battle outside.

It would be useless to keep surveillance looped now but it had served its purpose and let them keep the element of surprise. Except for the outside cameras, they were on their own now.

Rensburg always had a bodyguard on duty, even at night, though Alex was sure the other two would be awake now as well. Rensburg himself was usually in his office this time of night, surveillance cameras revealing either chronic insomnia or the same need for very little sleep that Yassen possessed as well. He could leave and Alex would get no warning now, but he hoped the pattern would hold.

The bodyguards would be on high alert and Alex moved fast but carefully, keeping an eye on everything around him. There should be no other staff around but it didn't hurt to be sure. He had made no attempt to look like his usual self, to pretend he was on their side. He doubted they would fall for it, anyway. Instead he was dressed like the rest of Sagitta, in all-black combat gear and body armour, uncomfortable warm and heavy, and heavily armed. As it had been the case outside, in the darkness, against someone without night vision, he was close to invisible.

A flicker of movement in the darkness was all the warning he got. The bodyguard – Alex recognised the man as the usual night shift – didn't have night vision goggles but he seemed to have adjusted just slightly to the cloying darkness and decided that it was the better option compared to a torch.

The man moved but Alex had fired before he could do more than raise his weapon. The figure collapsed, a bleeding hole in its forehead.

 _One._

Alex shallowed hard but ignored it and pressed on. Rensburg's men weren't fighting outsiders. They were fighting what should have been some of their own; people who had access to the full estate and spent weeks mapping every system, every weakness, every blind spot. At best it was a brutally one-sided battle. At worst, it was cold-blooded execution.

He passed the two neighbouring doors where the other bodyguards lived. Both were closed. Alex was sure both men were awake, though he had no idea if they were inside or not. He didn't test the locks, though, just attached a small amount of explosive to each with quick, silent movements. The noises from outside helped drown out any sound he might make. He stayed on high alert, aware that one or both of them could appear at any moment, and finished up with the explosive as fast as he could.

Alex wasn't sure what alerted him – instincts, paranoia, adrenaline – but he pressed up against the wall the moment before the sharp beam of a torch cut through the darkness at the end of the hallway. Alex fired three times in quick succession before he even knew who the target was; his best estimate based on the angle of the light and the brief movement. It wasn't one of SCORPIA's people, which was all that mattered now. A scream told him he had hit something and the torch fell useless to the ground, illuminating nothing but the wall.

Alex crossed the short distance and checked for any other attackers but came up empty. His night vision goggles adjusted to the new light and let him recognise the second bodyguard. The bullets had hit well enough. Two had hit his chest but been stopped by body armour. The last had been the lucky shot. The man's shoulder was a broken mess and based on the rapidly expanding pool of blood, something – bullet or bone fragments – had hit an artery. Dead without immediate medical attention, then.

Alex could feel a tremor in his hand. Ignored it and let endless lessons take over.

A fourth shot and the man was still. Alex knelt down and switched off the torch. The hallway plunged back into the darker green level of night vision.

 _Two._

With one of the two off-duty bodyguards already up and moving, odds were the last surviving one would be as well. Alex briefly considered trying the rooms since the doors were already set to blow but decided against it. Most likely the man would be with Rensburg like he got paid to.

Alex replaced the magazine. He still had rounds left but he didn't want to run the risk. Not with two targets still out there.

He headed straight for Rensburg's office. How long had passed since the main attack had started? Two minutes? Four? He had no idea. The headset remained silent. For now, the lack of anything was still good news. There were a number of rooms to handle.

Alex didn't meet anyone on the way. It was in the middle of the night and any surviving guards would be outside, dealing with the attack. Alex and Sagitta knew the standing orders and used that against Rensburg's people now.

Rensburg's office was locked and that door boasted a lot better security than the staff quarters had. It still didn't stand much of a chance against explosive charges and an opponent who didn't need the occupants of the room alive or unharmed.

Alex moved fast, targeting both the hinges and the lock itself. He wasn't an expert but he knew enough. Yassen had created a sound foundation and Gordon Ross had continued to build on that.

Explosive in place, double-check the positions, detonators, _cover -_

The hallway exploded in a roar of noise and light and debris. Alex had closed his eyes tightly to keep from getting spots in his vision from the sudden brightness, but even then he could see the world around him light up briefly and felt the force of the blast.

The explosion had been enough to knock the door to the floor and training took over again. Move quickly before the occupants could move, fragmentation grenade and throw it _hard,_ away from the angle of the door -

Alex took cover down the hallway. If the bodyguard was inside – and he hadn't had time to check – there was the risk that the man would theoretically have time to throw the grenade back out. With some luck, the hard throw would make it bounce around too much to make it possible.

The world exploded again, different but just as strong, and far more lethal. The walls kept Alex shielded from the fragments but he still felt the force of the explosion.

Training and instructions had taken over, instincts helping when those two failed, and Alex knew what he would probably find beyond the door but forced the thought deep into the dark, unwanted corners of his mind.

The hallway reeked; a sharp, harsh combination of explosive and dust and smouldering plastic that burned all the way down Alex's throat with every breath. It had nowhere to go, no ventilation to remove it anymore, and the world around him was a greenish haze through his goggles.

Gun ready, Alex found the third bodyguard in the middle of the room.

 _Three._

The man had been well within the fatality radius – on accident or an attempt to get rid of the grenade, Alex didn't know, and forced himself not to think about it – but Rensburg hadn't. He had been close enough to be injured, though, and had been thrown against the solid, wooden desk by the explosion.

The blood was clear against his lighter clothes in several places but despite it all, the injuries and the raw force of the blast, he still shifted against the desk and pulled his legs under himself to attempt to get up.

He looked up and met Alex's eyes in the darkness, on accident more than anything but still horribly, terribly _human -_

 _\- The virus, millions dead, adults, elderly, **children** -_

\- And Alex pulled the trigger twice – _heart and head –_ before he could change his mind.

Rensburg collapsed against the desk, two dark blooms of blood mingling with the injuries from the grenade. Alex was shaking.

 _Four._

He took a deep breath and ignored the stench and the burn, ignored the sting in his eyes, and glanced over the destroyed room quickly for anyone he might have missed. He found nothing. Just destruction. That check over, he brought out a small device from one pocket, set the timer with quick, practised motions, and placed it under the curtains. Five minutes, and the place would catch fire. It wouldn't do to risk anything. Then he finally turned to leave, to meet the rest of the team outside.

Alex felt something shift on his wrist, under his sleeve. He pulled it up. A second later, his bracelet fell off.

The world froze for a moment as his mind made the connections – deactivated, the only way to unlock them without a key – and then the memory of Dr Cabrera in Argentina.

 _Mr van Rensburg's key, made to his specifications -_

Alex had thought that meant the shape of it, a ring rather than a bracelet, but if there was a dead man's switch in it, if it was made to deactivate everything in case of Rensburg's death, in case SCORPIA or his men failed to keep him safe, or worse, turned on him -

He touched his headset before he even had to think about it. "Sagitta, this is Orion. Check your bracelets. Mine deactivated right after Rensburg died."

A second of silence, two -

" _Fuck."_

Alex recognised Marcus' voice easily. Not just him, then. They were all targets now. No longer part of the clan of sorts but intruders. The hyenas could be anywhere and were hopefully far away because of the explosions and gunfire, but they didn't know.

If the bracelets had deactivated, how much else was? The signals that kept them confined?

… The signal that kept them sterile? The thought popped up, entirely unwanted, but Alex couldn't shake it. He had paid no attention to it back then and it had no bearing on their immediate mission, but if that had been designed to fail as well -

\- The clan would breed. Larger, stronger, more intelligent than normal hyenas, they would have every advantage. Their number would grow. They wouldn't just survive but _thrive_. The only good thing was that they hadn't been created to be more aggressive. More hostile.

 _Fuck._

Marcus' heartfelt curse felt strangely appropriate.

They had to get out now. A quick escape had been important before, but the urgency just kicked up a good bit. Alex hoped the clan was smart enough to stay away and just take the chance to run instead, but they didn't know and they had better be well away before they got the chance to find out first-hand.

Down the hallways, keep an eye out for anyone who might have escaped Sagitta's sweep outside, but right now Alex's goal was escape, and he only paused to leave several more of the incendiary devices. Enough to hopefully overwhelm the measures in the building meant to keep fire from spreading in the first place.

Alex clearly wasn't the only one in a sudden rush.

" _Rendezvous immediate upon confirmation of targets. Transport is incoming. Status?"_ Marcus' voice, welcome and familiar.

Alex listened as Sagitta checked in, every last target slowly but steadily accounted for – and there had been strict instructions to count and identify every single body – and waited for Ivey to finish his report before he checked in as well.

Alex turned a corner, about to speak, and saw a familiar figure right in front of him in the unnatural green light of night vision. In the darkness and with no protection from her, Toka cut an intimidating figure, juvenile or not.

Alex froze. Toka stood still and watched him with glowing, green eyes. He didn't know what would happen if he aimed his gun at her and with her so close, he wasn't about to risk it. She could strike before he could shoot. Without the bracelet, he was a threat. An outsider.

" _Orion?"_ Marcus' voice in his ear, Alex's silence clearly longer than he had expected or was happy with.

Alex took a breath, about to answer – would his voice set her off? Would she see that as a threat, too? - and then Toka moved.

She headbutted his hip and he instinctively scratched her neck the way he had done so often before. She made a low sound of satisfaction and Alex felt his breath catch. Then she turned and vanished down another hallway, and Alex felt the crash as the adrenaline left him.

" _Orion?_ " Marcus again, more urgent this time.

"I met Toka," Alex answered. Took a steadying breath to get himself back under control. "She let me go. All four targets confirmed, building set to light up in two minutes."

He had the horrible feeling he was forgetting something, something important, but his hands were shaking and all he could think of was getting out of there. All he could focus on was the rendezvous spot in the courtyard.

The last, short half-walk, half-run through the hallways was nerve-racking, every second he spent setting up the last of the incendiary devices an eternity, with the memory of Toka's glowing eyes right in front of him and the thought that they might have missed one of Rensburg's people. He met no one else on the way but the worry remained.

The compound was lit by flames when Alex finally reappeared outside. The two staff buildings were being engulfed fast, bright bonfires against the darkness. Alex would bet good money those fires had been started in Sagitta and his own rooms. No evidence left for someone to find. Rensburg's office would catch fire at any moment, too, followed shortly after by the rest of the devices Alex had left. Maybe everything wouldn't burn down but most of it would.

Half of Sagitta was already there. A few more figures were on their way as dark silhouettes against the backdrop of flames.

Marcus glanced at him. "Got most of the bodies ID'ed. You okay?"

Something in his expression made Alex reach up to touch his face. His hand came away dark and sticky with the familiar feeling of drying blood. Something stung along his jawline, unnoticed until now.

"I guess?" Alex swallowed and wiped his hand on his trousers. "I didn't actually notice."

"Adrenaline. Looks superficial. Might have been bits of the door when you blew it up. If your cover from the grenade had been too thin, you would have noticed."

Mild understatement, that. Alex nodded. It didn't feel bad and it was obviously handling itself already. He would clean it later. Marcus and the others looked a bit worse for wear, too. No big injuries that Alex could tell on any of their exposed skin, but plenty of cuts and bruises and dark smears from blood and dirt and soot.

"Anyone hurt?" he asked, anyway, just to be sure.

Marcus shook his head. "We had speed and surprise on our side. Couple of nasty bruises, some scratches, that's all. Got spotted twice, but we took care of that before they could cause trouble."

It was a relief to hear it out loud. He glanced at Adams. "Surveillance?" The only bit of evidence left to handle.

"We got everything wiped. Nothing left. We'll keep the infrared cameras online until we're out of here, then they're going, too. Watching, not recording, though. I found two generators in the basement as expected. They're set to go up thirty seconds after we cut the last camera."

Another relief. Alex nodded. That should be the last of it. Anything else the fire would hopefully take care of. He hoped Toka would be well out of the building by the time that fire spread. She probably would be. She was smarter than to hang around. At least they weren't likely to start a massive forest fire from lighting up the buildings. The buildings were all surrounded by a border of neatly-trimmed lawn and both the lawn and the vegetation further out were lush, green, and heavy with water.

The last of the team reached them. Ivey reported without prompting.

"We cleared the last of it. A couple of the bodies took a little longer to figure out, but we've got everyone accounted for."

 _Accounted for_. Alex kept down the hysterical laugher that threatened to escape. They had been going over dead bodies, some of them probably mutilated to near-unrecognisable, and they called it 'accounted for'.

He wanted out of there. Now.

"Transport?"

"Inbound, four minutes."

They should hear the sound of the helicopter soon, then. Something in Alex eased just a little though his hands were still trembling faintly. The helicopter would have to land a bit away, the courtyard too crowded for a safe landing, but there was plenty of space for that, at least. Lots of open grassland.

Next to them, Adams slung his rifle back over his shoulder and brought out what looked to Alex like a very small, very durable laptop. Images flickered across the screen under Adams' hands – the infrared cameras, Alex realised.

"The first open area past the staff housing still looks like the best bet," Adams said. "It's a lot closer than the actual helipad. Away from the smoke and far enough from the buildings that the fire won't be a problem, either."

Marcus nodded sharply. Turned to pass on the orders – hopefully to move out – and then Adams stilled.

"We've got company. Hyenas in the grass, straight ahead."

Marcus stilled as well. The grass was tall. More than tall enough to hide a number of lethal predators. "How many?"

More images from the infrared cameras flickered past on Adams' small screen, pausing on a few of them. "Eight … nine," he corrected.

Three missing, then. Assuming all twelve were still alive. Assuming they weren't just out of sight.

"Toka was inside. Her mum might be with her," Alex said, the missing piece, the forgotten _something_ falling into place. Toka never went anywhere without an adult, usually her mother, reasonably nearby. Toka had not been alone.

"And based on the sizes, I'd say the other cub is elsewhere, too," Adams added.

"Not much help."

Marcus looked unhappy. Alex understood. The quick mental calculation was brutally simple: There were more hyenas than guns. They were fast, strong, and vicious hunters. Even if everyone got in a lethal shot, there would still be survivors and no guarantee anyone could target them fast enough. And mostly hidden by tall grass … the odds of getting a lethal shot in the first attempt weren't exactly reassuring.

They could redirect the helicopter to the proper helipad … but that was a longer walk, and while there was a nice pathway, it was also surrounded by tall grass for the last bit. No protection and plenty of places for the hyenas to hide.

"Back of the house?" Ivey asked.

"Downwind from the smoke," Marcus said.

Heavy smoke, bad vision, burning lungs, god knew what sort of nasty stuff in the air … between that and the hyenas, Alex wasn't sure what was worse.

Marcus stared into the darkness towards where the hyenas were hiding, a sensible distance away from the fire. Maybe he ran through their mental arsenal. Alex already had and come up empty. He was out of incendiary devices, only had a few grenades left – for all the good they would do against something likely to run away and try from another direction – and he doubted the others were doing much better.

Finally Marcus glanced at Alex. "How smart are they?"

Alex hesitated. Thought back to Yassen's explanation. "Smart enough to adapt and work things out but not smart enough to be deliberately malicious."

Marcus nodded once. "We follow the north building. Stick as close to the fire as possible. Past that, stick to formation. They're smart hunters. They know guns are dangerous and they know we're dangerous, too. Don't give them a weak spot and they'll hopefully be smart enough not to attack."

Marcus had been watching the hyenas for weeks, Alex remembered, and he put that to use now. If the hyenas were capable of human maliciousness, of the willingness to endanger themselves in the name of revenge, that would demand a very different approach. This way … they would be smart enough not to attack. Alex hoped so, anyway.

Every instinct told him to stay away from the large, unstable, burning building. He still followed Sagitta across the courtyard and only stopped when they were so close the heat was almost unbearable. At least the smoke drifted away from them and left the air clear.

This close, the fire was all-consuming. The flames rose high above them, still gaining additional strength, the smell was already seeping into everything, and the noise was overwhelming. His night vision goggles had long since compensated for it, or Alex didn't doubt he would be seeing spots. The flames were already blinding as it was.

Marcus touched his headset and spoke. Alex heard nothing above the sound of the fire, but he assumed he was giving the pilot instructions and warning him about the hyenas.

Whatever the reply was, it seemed to be good news. Marcus gestured for them to follow along the building.

Glancing back, Alex saw the main building had finally caught fire as well. The reflections in the windows of the fires outside had become a hazy view of flames inside instead. There would be no shelter there, either.

The side of him that faced the fire felt like it was burning, the sharp sting of heat and small particles in the air. The part of the structure closest to the main building had been more intact but further up where the fire had been started, the entire thing was ablaze. Windows long since shattered, the wood black and red and brightly yellow and white, and every so often a bit of debris would crash to the ground and send a cloud of embers surging out towards them.

The hyenas were too smart to get close. Alex wished he could say the same thing about himself.

Something inside gave way with a deep groan of slowly snapping wood. Alex turned his face away, towards the shocking cold of clear air, just in time to avoid another surge of heat.

He forced himself not to focus on distance, just on Ivey in front of him, one step after the other -

\- And then they were past; darkness in front of them and the inferno behind them.

Marcus stopped. Up ahead, Alex saw the lights of the helicopter coming closer fast. A second later, he could pick up the sound of it as well through the underlying roar of the fire, the sound growing steadily louder.

The pilot, whoever it was, pushed the helicopter as close to the building as possible, but with the fire and the tall trees further out, it was still an unnervingly exposed walk.

The machine settled lightly on the ground, able to take off again in an instant. The sheer force from the rotors were enough to push the grass down and leave a wide, open area around it. Absurdly, Alex was reminded of seeing Yassen's Colibri helicopter bearing down on him high above London, with Sayle dead at his feet. This helicopter was different, military and much larger, but something about the manoeuvre and the skill behind it was the same.

" _Keep formation,"_ Marcus said, using the headset to be heard above the combined roar of fire and the helicopter. _"Keep pace, no blind spots. Don't shoot unless they attack, we don't want to set them off, but don't take your eye off of them, either. Adams?"_

" _Still nine,_ " Adams reported a few seconds later. _"Ahead and to the right. They're keeping clear of the helicopter. We're about to be out of range of surveillance. The cameras on the staff building are gone."_

Don't take your eye off of them. That was easier said than done when they was almost impossible to see, even with night vision. Any movement in the grass could be blamed on the wind or the rotors and only the occasional glimpse of brightly glowing eyes reflecting the fire let Alex know they were out there at all. He kept his rifle aimed directly at the closest set of eyes, his finger a hair's breadth above the trigger, and trusted the people around him to watch the other directions, to spot if the hyenas tried to move around them.

They moved slow and steady, careful not to rush. Sometimes the eyes would move, vanish when they no longer caught the light, and reappear an entirely different place. Sometimes one pair, sometimes more. Sometimes Alex would catch a glimpse of a dark figure or two among the grass, gone a moment later.

Once he knew he spotted Molai, moving gracefully through the night, matching them step by step. She looked lethal and intimidating in daylight and with the safety of the bracelets. In darkness and without them, she could have slipped straight out of a nightmare.

Alex felt the need to move, to run, to get out of there to the safety of the helicopter but forced himself to keep the slow and steady pace. He knew without being told that just like the hyenas would attack if someone shot at them, they would attack if anyone ran. If anyone showed any fear at all. It was an uncomfortable stand-off, both sides watching each other warily. They just had to make sure the fragile stalemate held for long enough to get out of there.

A sharp whoop from Molai cut through the noise, answered by several others. Alex gripped his rifle tighter but the hyenas didn't attack, just watched them intently and followed their slow progress across the grounds.

Smart enough to be wary of their weapons. Smart enough to decide they were too many to risk an attack. Smart enough to go for easier prey.

The noise of the helicopter grew steadily louder until the roar of it drowned out the sound of the inferno. Only then did Alex allow himself to acknowledge the tension in his body and the tremor that still lingered, too focused on the hyenas before to be able to afford the distraction.

" _Go!"_

The best order Alex had heard all night. He was inside the helicopter within ten seconds; strapped down within twenty. Shale closed the door behind them. Through a window, Alex caught sight of the hyenas, circling the machine like sharks.

Marcus leaned over to say something to the pilot. The man turned around and Alex blinked.

The pilot was Yassen. They hadn't discussed that but maybe Alex should have seen it coming. The only pilot who could do the job safely. Well, could have done it safely until that safety had failed. Even the pilot that had transported Yassen the other times had been given strict instructions of where it was safe to land and to stay inside the helicopter. Unlike Yassen, the man had never been given a bracelet.

Yassen said something. Marcus sat down.

Then they were airborne again and the world fell away beneath them; the hyenas and the sea of grass and the rainforest further out and, closer, the twin infernos of the staff buildings, quickly gained on by the fire spreading in the main building.

Alex's hands were still trembling. He slung the rifle back over his shoulder and clenched his fists but it did little to help.

" _You okay?"_ Aranda's voice in the headset, cutting through the engine noise.

Alex swallowed. Stared down at his hands and remembered Rensburg when he had pulled the trigger. The bodyguards, and the buildings that had been home to dozens of people just an hour ago, and the bodies they had left behind in their wake.

Six of them had been because of Alex. People he had known, humans with lives and dreams and families, and not just nameless killers like Ramos' guards.

"I -" he trailed off. Swallowed again. His mouth felt dry. "No," he admitted, almost inaudible even through the headset.

Aranda turned his attention to Shale on Alex's right side. A small nod had the man out of his seat to switch places with Aranda. Alex didn't move and didn't bother to look at his new neighbour.

" _Your arm,"_ Aranda said, and Alex obeyed mutely. He could almost feel the man's stare as he held Alex's hand in his own, tremors against his steady one.

Aranda let go again. Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw Mace pass a box to Aranda. He felt more than saw the medic go through the contents of it, any sound lost in the noise of the helicopter.

Alex's sleeve on his arm closest to the medic was rolled up. It was followed by the cold of a disinfectant wipe. That finally made Alex glance over, just in time to see Aranda prepare a small syringe. Alex wanted to ask. He should. He just couldn't work up the words or energy somehow.

The man noticed his stare. _"A mild tranquilliser,"_ he said, answering the unvoiced question. _"Not enough to knock you out but enough to make you calm down."_

Alex didn't object. He barely even felt the needle pierce his skin. Calm sounded nice. Calm sounded good. He didn't want to be Orion anymore. He had done his job, had killed and never hesitated, and he would have nightmares for weeks to come.

Yassen would probably have words about that. But Yassen was busy with the helicopter and right there and then, Yassen's opinions could go screw themselves.

" _Deep breaths,"_ Aranda continued. _"Nice and slow. You'll be fine."_

Alex didn't argue but let the sounds and vibrations of the helicopter mingle with the darkness beyond the window and simply watched the world outside as the gentle numbness of the tranquilliser set in.

One slow, steady breath. Then another. He wondered how long it would take him to get used to that sort of job.

A part of him, the part that remained Alex, doubted he ever would. A much larger part of him just hoped it would happen fast.

* * *

A/N: I have a strange urge to apologise to those poor readers who hoped Alex would get a break for Christmas.

Next: Interlude three.


	52. Interlude: Parallels, part I

A/N: This is a little longer than I planned, but I wanted to hit the 300k mark with this one, since the last interlude coincided with 200k. In fact, this turned out so ridiculously long, I split it in two. So this is part I, with part II coming next weekend.

* * *

The first time Zeljan Kurst met Alex Rider in person, he was annoyed. Reluctantly impressed that Cossack had somehow managed to beat enough manners into the boy to teach him to shut up and obey orders – for the most part, at least – but mainly annoyed.

Alex Rider looked too much like his father. He was a living, breathing reminder of Hunter, and Kurst by far preferred that any reminders of the man stayed dead and buried. If it weren't for Cossack's sponsorship and Rider's own excellent results, Kurst would have been delighted to dispose of him.

The second time Kurst met the boy was … unusual. The executive board was almost certain that Rider had nothing to do with MI6's most recent failed attempt to target them and was almost as certain that Rider was, in fact, one of the targets in an attempt to make SCORPIA dispose of him based on suspicions alone.

It was a decent plan, Kurst supposed. Use the Grief clone's appearance to get close to a target under the cover of Orion and use any intel found there to locate additional places to strike. It had worked to a degree; a few, minor low-ranking targets that had obviously been less than competent when it came to security. It had failed the first time MI6 had attempted to target somewhere with more competent guards, but Kurst was sure they had expected that, too. The Grief clone was expendable. Its real value lay in the chance to turn the executive board against Rider. SCORPIA had disposed of potential traitors and security leaks based on suspicion alone before, and if they had believed for a moment that Rider was the source of MI6's intel, the boy would have been interrogated and killed. It should have worked -

\- Except Alex Rider had carried a tracker since the moment he had been deemed ready to graduate. SCORPIA did not trust easily, and certainly not when the operative in question was Hunter's son.

The tracker had been meant as insurance for SCORPIA. Now it had likely saved the boy's life.

The executive board wasn't used to having an operative targeted rather than an actual operation. It was unusual but then, MI6 was known to hold a grudge.

Kurst did not appreciate unusual circumstances, and he took that out on the boy. As it turned out, another four months under Cossack's tutelage had worked wonders.

He wasn't sure what he had expected when they had summoned the boy with no warning and no explanation to get to the bottom of MI6's most recent move against them. The teenager he had first seen, perhaps. The one who hadn't quite been able to keep from mouthing off to his superiors.

What Kurst got was something else entirely and he wasn't sure what to think about that. They had operatives twice the boy's age and with five times the experience who couldn't have kept their calm in that situation. And yet Alex Rider – Orion – had managed at fifteen and only four months out of Malagosto. It was … unusual.

"Cossack's training surpassed every expectation," Dr Three noted after Orion had left. "Remarkably obedient. Grief's clone could perhaps have been useful but it is far too unstable. Too unpredictable. Orion is the more valuable of the two."

Kurst's only response was a non-committal sound. He still watched the door. Finally he looked at his fellow board member. "I'll admit I had my doubts. Perhaps we should have used Cossack to train more than merely Orion."

If Cossack would have put up with anyone else. Kurst doubted it. He had wondered about Cossack's desire to train the boy and invest so much time in him but now … he thought perhaps he understood.

There was something intensely satisfying about seeing Hunter's son in SCORPIA uniform, wearing SCORPIA's mark, and under Cossack's complete control.

Orion hadn't objected to his treatment, he hadn't resisted at all, and he had made no move to get up again until Kurst had allowed him to. Perfect obedience. Whatever Cossack had done, it had worked wonders. Perhaps it would be worth it to ask about the exact methods. The boy had no physical marks. That took a skilled hand.

Kurst was a man who could appreciate revenge in all its forms, and Cossack was a patient man. Hunter had betrayed them all. Kurst had settled for anger and wholeheartedly agreeing to the plan to see the man and his family killed in retribution.

Cossack … Cossack had watched and waited instead, had even defied the executive board to spare Alex Rider, and then he had made his move.

Kurst was not an easy man to impress but even he would admit to some degree of admiration for Cossack's revenge against a dead man.

If they elevated Cossack to the executive board, there was little doubt he would make Orion his second in command. After seeing the child again, Kurst would reluctantly agree he would make a good choice.

"I doubt it would have worked. He never had much patience for incompetence," Dr Three said. He sounded fond. The man always had a soft spot for Cossack.

Kurst made another non-committal sound and pushed the matter from his mind. Grief's clone would be disposed of. Orion would return to the operation. Kurst wouldn't need to see the boy again for a long time.

… Except somehow a week later, Kurst found himself face to face with Alex Rider again, this time with the commander of one of the combat teams along for company. SCORPIA had no patience for failure, and certainly not something of that magnitude, and yet Kurst found himself strangely reluctant to kill the boy.

Alex Rider was stubborn and defiant, but this time the boy was less a reminder of everything Hunter had been and more a reminder of everything Hunter _hadn't_ been. Hunter would have let a combat team take the blame without a second thought to further his own goals. Orion had taken full responsibility.

Orion was … sentimental. Loyal. He had obviously expected to be shot for it and did it, anyway.

Alex Rider wasn't Hunter.

It was a peculiar realisation. A week prior he would have killed the boy for his failure. Now he let him go.

And a month and a half later on a heavily modified tourist boat in Paris, when the boy's future and survival was once more in the hands of the executive board, there was only one verdict Kurst could give.

"Approved."

Cossack had done an exceptional job. Hunter would be rolling in his grave.

It had been a worthwhile investment.

* * *

There had never been any doubt about Winston Yu's decision. Cossack was not a product of the traditional intelligence services, that was true, but he was a result of the best training a decade and a half in SCORPIA's employment could buy. In Yu's experience, that made him leagues better than the other potential candidates they had looked at. His somewhat different background was an asset, not a liability.

Even Cossack's future second in command was a boon. Certainly the boy was young, but Orion was well-trained. Experience would teach him the rest, and there was something to be said for a trusted subordinate trained from such a young age.

Ash had been a terrible disappointment in the end. Perhaps Yu had grown too tolerant of his lax manners. Perhaps he should have made his expectations and the consequences of failure more clear. Perhaps he had simply allowed himself to believe the best of someone who had unfortunately failed to appreciate the second chance he had been given.

Once a traitor, always a traitor, it seemed.

Perhaps Cossack had the right idea. Alex Rider, stolen away from right beneath MI6's nose, had never been allowed to develop those same unfortunate habits as Ash. He remained respectful even under pressure, did not argue with his superiors, and obeyed orders without question. 'A healthy fear for his life', Brendan Chase had described it as once. Yu was inclined to agree.

To Winston Yu, there was no doubt about the outcome of the meeting. Kroll was about to be a bother, certainly, but Yu had plans to settle that matter, too. Kroll had grown too paranoid and ambitious for Yu's taste. He had allowed the stress of his position to get to him and that was simply unforgivable.

Kroll would die. His place would be taken by Cossack, a far more stable and reasonable man. Yu would have eliminated a competitor and perhaps gained somewhat of a debt from Cossack in the process. All in all, it was an acceptable day's work.

* * *

Marcus had only had his full, uninjured team back for two days when the news reached them.

They had been given their orders, a standard assignment to hunt down some bastard or another that had annoyed someone enough to get a combat team to fix it, and they would be ready to leave the following morning. Then the base commander stuck his head in while they finished up the last of the packing.

"Sir?" Marcus asked.

"You've worked with Cossack before," the man said. It wasn't a question; gossip travelled fast and that was pretty common knowledge by now. Cossack always worked alone, except now Marcus' team had been there for two assignments. That alone was enough to make them interesting. "Thought you'd like to know. There's been a promotion on the executive board; Levi Kroll is dead and Yassen Gregorovich is the most recent member. Orion got promoted to his second."

Part of Marcus wasn't even surprised at Gregorovich's promotion, Miami and Santa Catarina had both been well beyond what he'd thought assassins normally did for SCORPIA, but it was still startling to hear it out loud.

The base commander was gone again before anyone could decide to ask any questions; probably on purpose. Someone breathed a soft curse, catching the last bit of information that Marcus' brain hadn't quite reached yet.

"Are they trying to kill the kid?" Aranda asked. "He's fifteen. He graduated … what, this year?"

"March," Adams murmured. "Sink or swim, I guess."

Marcus did the mental calculations. Orion was pretty close-mouthed for teenager but chatty for an operative, and the lack of company on Santa Catarina meant they had inevitably ended up talking. Half a year of field work since the kid graduated. Three months at Malagosto. Five months of Yassen Gregorovich's personal tutelage before that. He supposed that Gregorovich would have a pretty good idea of whether the kid would be up for the job, then. It spoke volumes that the kid had even survived those first five months to begin with.

Still, that was a hell of a lot of responsibility to dump on a fifteen-year-old. Marcus hoped Gregorovich knew what he was doing. Orion was a good kid, too young and too human for one of SCORPIA's assassins by far, and he didn't deserve to be killed for some failure or another that he didn't have a chance or the experience to get right.

There was nothing Marcus could do about it, though. They might never see the kid again. Orion would be tangled up in executive board politics now, and who knew what sort of operations he would be involved with in the future.

Marcus' team had their assignment. Hunt down their target and remove the problem. Anything else, they would deal with after that.

* * *

The CIA got word of the changes on SCORPIA's executive board three weeks after the fact. There might have been intelligence agencies who found out faster, but Joe Byrne doubted it had been by much.

Levi Kroll was dead. Yassen Gregorovich had been promoted to the executive board. And Alex Rider – fifteen years old and way too young to be SCORPIA's, much less tangled up in that sort of politics – was his second in command.

The 'too young' part was admittedly Joe's personal opinion, though reading between the lines, the CIA analysts agreed. No fifteen-year-old had any business getting involved in that sort of thing, not even – or maybe especially – a fifteen-year-old that had already been conscripted by MI6. But then, who else would Gregorovich trust? He had trained the kid himself, had him loyal and obedient … if he wasn't going to pick Rider for the job, who was left?

Less than a week later, Winston Yu was dead – assassinated – and ASIS had struck against key parts of Yu's snakehead. Joe doubted they would get all of it, the organisation was too large, but it had still caused massive upheaval in the criminal underworld. Joe passed on the order to pull out the few operatives they had with Yu's snakehead but otherwise he was content to focus on more important things.

Two dead members of SCORPIA's executive board and one promotion, all within less than a month. Not for the first time Joe wished they had someone on the inside high enough up in the hierarchy to tell them exactly what was going on.

Yu's assassination could have been arranged by any number of people. He had made a lot of enemies, and his association with SCORPIA didn't have to be the reason. Kroll, though … that had been a direct strike against the board. Whether by another board member or an outsider, they didn't know.

Joe left that one to the analysts. That was what they got paid for. Joe and his people kept their focus on the two assassinations and Gregorovich's promotion – mostly the latter – but that didn't keep another argument from popping up when the topic drifted a little too far from the core issues.

Alex Rider didn't matter, not in the same way Gregorovich did, but no one could claim to be entirely unaffected by the knowledge that Gregorovich's most trusted, his extended will and personal assassin, was a fifteen-year-old child.

Of course, the exact opinions on the matter differed somewhat.

"He's a traitor!"

"He's a kid backed so far into a corner by his own government that _Yassen Gregorovich_ seemed like the safer alternative!"

"He might have been a kid back then," Joe interrupted, familiar with the argument, "but he's had a full year of Gregorovich and SCORPIA's training by now. He won't be a kid anymore. This is the operative who graduated Malagosto _three weeks after his fifteenth birthday._ Yassen Gregorovich's hand-picked apprentice. Gregorovich trained him for this job. Whatever hold he has on Rider, it's strong enough that he trusts him to be loyal. To our best estimate, Nile was twenty-one when he was promoted to Rothman's second in command. Assume we're dealing with something similar."

Traitor or not, and Joe leaned towards 'not'. Rider had been fourteen when Gregorovich had claimed him and kept him isolated for five months solid. No child stood much chance against the manipulations of someone of Gregorovich's calibre. Not even someone like Alex Rider.

Gregorovich would not have promoted someone he didn't trust completely. Alex Rider was SCORPIA's. And more importantly, Joe suspected, he was Gregorovich's.

* * *

Tulip Jones got to pass the most recent information on the changes in SCORPIA's command structure on to her boss. She wasn't sure how the man would react. She wasn't even sure how to react herself.

It was a strange situation, she would acknowledge that. Alex Rider had done on accident what MI6 had spent a lot of time and resources trying – and failing – to manage with John Rider. Not a place on the executive board, but high enough in the hierarchy to do a lot of damage if he had the desire to.

Fifteen-year-old Alex Rider was Yassen Gregorovich's second in command. His right hand and extended will, with access to the sort of intel most intelligence agencies would sacrifice a frightening amount of resources to get to. They had been ready to write him off after the events on Santa Catarina, but Alex Rider had clearly inherited his father's luck of the Devil and managed to land on his feet once more.

It also meant that he was trusted. Yassen Gregorovich was not a man to suffer fools or traitors lightly. He usually worked alone. The fact that he had chosen a second in command at all spoke volumes to Tulip Jones, as it would to anyone with any experience with the man.

The fact that the choice was Alex Rider … perhaps part of it could have been excused with some lingering sense of fondness. More likely, Tulip knew, it was because Gregorovich had trained him and knew he would be completely, unquestioningly loyal. Certainly the child had let Agent Daniels go when he could have killed him, but Tulip didn't doubt he had paid dearly for it. He had survived, which alone was proof that Gregorovich probably had some fondness for him, but she had no doubt he had still paid for the mistake. There was little chance Gregorovich had not found out about that small detail.

If Gregorovich had still been willing to promote him, to trust a fifteen-year-old at his back, it was because Alex Rider was his. Because he knew the child would be loyal to him above all else.

Not for the first time she wondered just how Gregorovich had trained the child. Not for the first time she suspected that she didn't want to know.

She was quite unintentionally reminded of Nile. He had been promoted young, too, though at a far more reasonable age than Alex … than Orion. An altogether unpleasant agent, that one. She had never met him in person, but their file said enough. Julia Rothman's imprisonment had done little to stop him. Last they heard, Brendan Chase had claimed him as his second in command. An altogether unpleasant man, that one, too.

Compared to that bit of change in SCORPIA's hierarchy, Levi Kroll's assassination barely mattered. Of course it did, and their analysts would be busy working through the implications, but in MI6's opinion, the man had been at high risk of an assassination attempt. It wasn't exactly unexpected.

It would shake up the executive board a little, certainly, but so would Gregorovich's promotion. He was one of SCORPIA's own, a trained assassin and the first member of the board that did not come from the intelligence community. It was an unusual move. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come. Perhaps he would simply be the exception to the rule.

Tulip Jones closed the folder and left her office. Alan Blunt would be in; she knew his schedule and there was nothing that should have seen him elsewhere for another several hours.

She found him in his office as expected and closed the door behind her before she handed him the file.

"There have been changes in SCORPIA's executive board. Levi Kroll has been assassinated," she summarised. "Yassen Gregorovich has been promoted to member of the board." A heartbeat. "He has made Alex Rider his second in command."

Alan Blunt didn't react but opened the file. There were several short reports, summaries of larger ones in the back of the file. Blunt read them without a word. The only sounds in the room were the low hum of a fan somewhere and the soft sound of shifting paper. Finally Blunt put the last of the summaries down.

"Gregorovich is a ghost," he said, echoing what Tulip already knew. They had a file on Yassen Gregorovich but little of substance in it. Most of that had been provided by John Rider, and Tulip had always had the nagging suspicion that John had been somewhat selective about the intel he passed on as a way to shield his teenage apprentice. Now that teenage apprentice was long since grown and to all intents and purposes, the man he had become did not exist. "Alex Rider …"

Emotionless eyes glanced at the file. "Starbright is his closest bond outside of SCORPIA. The CIA will keep a close eye on her, I'm sure. It will be useless, of course. Gregorovich would kill the boy and Starbright both if he ever suspected such a weakness in his subordinate. Increase the surveillance on Harris. If he is a weakness, someone will target him. Rider won't care, Gregorovich will have trained him better than that, but perhaps it will gain us another source of information."

Tulip nodded, already going through mental schedules to find the agents to reassign to Tom Harris. Perhaps one for Starbright, too, though probably not. The thought was tempting, but she knew their counterparts across the pond would pay a little too much attention to the woman to miss a newly-arrived agent.

Blunt closed the file. Tulip Jones took it as the dismissal it was and left again to arrange for things.

Alan Blunt was not a man to linger on what might have been, but Tulip wondered if even he could keep from a brief thought of what they could have done if it had been John Rider in his son's place instead.

Second in command to the most recent member of SCORPIA's executive board.

If Alex Rider lived long enough, if Gregorovich had trained him well enough, he would reach adulthood under the twin aegises of money and power – and have enough blood on his hands to put even Tulip's most experienced agents to shame.

* * *

In the middle of October, Jack Starbright got invited to a meeting with Joe Byrne. Invited, she noticed, not ordered or kidnapped or just had a random government car show up at her parents' house.

She wasn't sure if that was a good sign, and she had been ready to demand an explanation the moment she stepped into his office.

The words died on her tongue when she saw just how tired he looked. Instead she felt her heart clench. "Alex?"

Byrne must have understood the sort of impression he had managed to give, because he looked marginally sympathetic for just a moment. "Alive. Fine as far as we know. Please sit, Ms Starbright. Coffee? Tea?"

"No, thank you," Jack said automatically, vaguely confused by the politeness. "Why am I here?"

"You're used to handling classified information," Byrne said, tactfully not mentioning the mountain of paperwork they had made Jack sign, them and MI6 both. "Consider this as classified as Alex himself. There has been a promotion on SCORPIA's executive board. Yassen Gregorovich has been promoted to its most recent member. He has made Alex his second in command."

Jack didn't answer but just stared at him, waiting for him to continue. She hadn't been in contact with Alex since Christmas, knew that the CIA knew it, and they were both well aware of just that. Jack hated spies sometimes.

Byrne sighed. He was well aware of Jack's lack of patience with intelligence agencies. She had made that part abundantly clear to anyone who would listen. "This not only means that Gregorovich trusts Alex to act on his behalf – and Gregorovich is not a man known for his trust – but also that the kid has managed to find himself in the highest echelons of power. He'll make enemies. The fact that he hasn't contacted you in almost a year will probably keep you safe, and if he's smart he'll keep it that way, but I would like to take some precautions."

"Precautions." Jack put a full year of sarcasm and distrust and anger into that one word. "How altruistic."

"Not entirely," Byrne admitted, "but I'm sure you expected that. I think you'll agree it's the better option, though. Your parents have been looking for a smaller place, I believe?"

There was nothing 'believe' about that and Jack knew it. The CIA kept an eye on everything about her. Her father had recovered well from his stroke and rehabilitation had gone better than expected, but their house was still too big for an ageing couple, one of them recovering from a stroke. Jack had rented a place when she first returned to the States but she had moved back in with her parents the same day her father came home from the hospital. Now, with her father on the right track again and her parents looking for a smaller home to enjoy their retirement in, she had started to look for something else. Something to do, too. She had lived on her savings so far. Ian Rider had paid well – in retrospect for her loyalty and silence, she suspected – and she had never used a lot of her pay. She had room and board already. Most of what she had earned had been put aside for later.

The CIA undoubtedly knew that, too.

"Is it part of the job description that people in charge of intelligence agencies have to be professional stalkers?" Jack asked instead of answering the question.

"Well, that's what they pay us for," Byrne answered dryly. "Not just the people in charge. If you think Ian Rider didn't know everything about you right down to your school records, you're in for a bad surprise."

Jack's expression hardened. "Ian Rider regularly left his seven-year-old, orphaned nephew alone with a twenty-one-year-old university student for weeks. When he figured out that Alex had managed to get attached and I planned to stick around, he was sometimes gone for a month or more at a time. I'm sure he checked I wasn't a threat to Alex, and I can't blame him for that, but he was still a spectacularly shitty guardian."

Jack knew she wasn't supposed to speak ill of the dead but in this case she didn't care. Maybe Ian Rider had thought he had done the right thing, maybe he'd had good reasons, but Jack was the one who'd had to deal with a child desperate for any sort of attention and approval and who was far more of an adult than any kid should have had to be. It had been a relief when he had started to act a bit like a normal kid.

And then Ian Rider had died. Been murdered. And if he hadn't been such a shitty guardian, if Blunt and the rest of the creepy little child abusers hadn't decided to blackmail a fourteen-year-old, maybe Alex wouldn't be god-knew-where, playing personal assistant of sort to the same man that had killed his uncle in the first place.

"Point." Byrne looked like he already regretted mentioning Ian Rider. "The bottom line, Ms Starbright, is this: We would like to put you in a safe-house. You will be close to your parents, your rent will be paid, and you'll be free to work as long as long as you accept that you will need to take some precautions. Don't get predictable, don't let down your guard, things like that. The same things Alex probably learned from childhood. What I ask you to do in return is accept the security we provide, try not to make their lives as difficult as you have so far, and contact us immediately if anything seems out of the ordinary."

 _Bait_ , Jack supplied, but not really. She would be a target even if she found a place herself, and she hadn't even started looking. If Alex had enemies now that were potentially dangerous enough to go after her … she needed somewhere away from her parents. Somewhere safer. And she needed it now.

She would rely on the CIA. Get tangled up in that world despite the best of her efforts. Be dependent on others for her security … and probably be bait if they ever needed it. For Alex's enemies, maybe even for Alex himself, though she desperately hoped he was smart enough to stay away. He had to be. Maybe not a year and a half ago, but he had been trained by an assassin and he had managed to dodge everyone sent to hunt him down since he left London. She would have to trust that Alex knew this world better than she did and that he could spot a trap when he saw it.

Alex had agreed to Blunt's demands to keep his last remaining family. To keep Jack.

Jack thought of her parents, of her still-recovering father, of them being caught in the middle of an attack that was only ever meant to target her -

"All right," she said before she could finish that thought. "I – all right."

It felt a little like she had just sold a bit of her soul to the devil. Like she had never had a choice. She wondered if it had felt the same way for Alex.

* * *

Tom wasn't sure exactly how he noticed, but sometime during the course of October, his ever-present shadows seemed to multiply. He wouldn't say they were breeding, that would just imply someone actually got naked and horizontal at some point, but definitely multiplying.

At least Tom wasn't about to go blame paranoia. Not when he actually knew they were watching him.

He watched and waited for a week. Then he called Jack.

Jack Starbright did not sound happy. With MI6, that was, not Tom. She couldn't say anything, the line wasn't secure and Tom got that, but that didn't mean she couldn't help.

"I'll have a talk with them," she said, voice tight and angry. "Call me if they haven't explained in five days. In fact, call me anyway, and I'll make sure we got the same story."

Tom didn't know what sort of threats Jack had made, but three days later he found himself at the Royal & General after school with the woman he remembered as Mrs Jones.

The office was silent but for the sound of the peppermint candy she was sucking on. Tom wasn't about to speak first and he was kind of curious how long she would let the silence stretch on. It wasn't like he was in a hurry to get home, and it was nice to just let his thoughts drift for a while.

Eventually she caved. Tom was pretty sure she had much more important things to do than he did and she had probably seen that he could keep that idle daydreaming up for hours.

"Ms Starbright feels you are old enough to be treated like an adult," she said. "With everything that has happened, I believe she is right."

"Don't see why I wouldn't be," Tom said a little vindictively before common sense could kick in. "Alex was old enough to send off to go an adult's job at fourteen."

Old enough to be sent off to get killed. And now Alex was the killer. Tom didn't care, at least Alex was still alive. He wasn't sure the same would have been the case if Alex had stayed with MI6.

Mrs Jones didn't react. Tom wasn't surprised. It was like the entire place was populated by robots.

You probably had to be, to blackmail a fourteen-year-old and use them like they had done with Alex.

"Alex's mentor has recently been promoted to SCORPIA's executive board," Mrs Jones continued like Tom hadn't spoken at all. "He has made Alex his second in command. This position will earn Alex a number of enemies. As you haven't been in contact with Alex since his departure -"

"Departure," Tom repeated under his breath. " _Sure._ "

"- The risk that you may be targeted is low, significantly lower than the risk to Ms Starbright, but we have chosen to increase security around you nonetheless."

Oh, now they were _security_. More like stalkers, but Tom knew better than to argue. It wouldn't do anything, anyway. They were there in case Alex was stupid enough to contact him and if they happened to keep Tom safe at some point in the future, that was just a side effect.

Based on the look he got, she probably knew, anyway.

"That would be all. Good afternoon, Mr Harris."

Tom didn't do the two-fingered salute when he left, but he was really tempted.

Tom and Jack compared the story in careful, vague terms that evening when Tom got home. As far as they could tell, they got the same version. Maybe it wasn't the truth, they couldn't tell, but at least it was the same one.

* * *

Theodoros van Rensburg had spent a long time looking for the best company to … assist his plans. He had expected it would be a reasonably simple job. Hire a sufficiently skilled company to handle that which his own people couldn't, nothing more, but it turned out to be more complicated than that.

Biological weapons were not impossible to gain access to, but the number of people willing to deal in such items was vanishingly small after the actions of Damian Cray and the barely-avoided attack on London.

In the end, the list came down to one name: SCORPIA.

Their largest competitors did not have the ability to carry it out or they flat-out refused. The more ideologically driven organisations Krüger had approached on his behalf were too unreliable. Only SCORPIA was willing to assist in such an operation and had the influence to see it done.

They had a sound reputation and skilled, reliable operatives, and Theodoros' plan was a large enough investment to put it directly as the responsibility of one of their executive board.

Theodoros had done his own research. Yassen Gregorovich was not the sort of man Theodoros liked, with no morals and his skills for sale to the highest bidder, but he was exceptionally good at his job.

Theodoros had been less than pleased about the man's second in command when he had received that particular file.

"Alex Rider is a child." Fifteen according to his file, not even old enough to have left school, much less to be trained as a killer. SCORPIA clearly trusted him. Theodoros did not like what that implied about their training of the boy or their level of control of him.

Krüger shrugged. "The child is a Malagosto graduate. Old enough for the job, I think."

Theodoros wasn't surprised. He hadn't really expected Krüger to understand. The man was ruthlessly practical, which was why Theodoros had hired him in the first place. Sometimes that was more inconvenient than others.

"He should be in school."

"He is," Krüger agreed. "A different sort of school. It will serve him well."

Theodoros ignored him and glanced at the photo in the file again. Blond, British … a world away from his own family, his own _son,_ and yet …

He closed the file. He would bring the matter to Gregorovich, though he knew it would make no difference. Alex Rider was SCORPIA's property. They were not known for a willingness to relinquish what was theirs.

Theodoros would treat him like what he was, a trained operative hired for a job, and he would do his best to ignore the fact that the child was only fifteen.

* * *

Marcus had sort of expected they had seen the last of Orion after the kid's promotion. Marcus' team wasn't normally involved in larger operations except for the two Orion had dragged them along for, and Orion would be busy with executive board business now.

Then they got pulled from their operation with little warning, just enough time to finish the job, and reassigned to the middle of Africa on Orion's command. Marcus couldn't say he minded. He didn't like humidity much, and he really didn't want to get tangled up with something that close to the executive board, but there was something to be said for working for a boss who would stand up to Zeljan Kurst for them. Orion was a good kid. More important, he was theirs.

The kid looked tired when they saw him, tired and stressed; still getting used to his new responsibilities. He was still Orion, though, and there was something reassuring about that.

So maybe they were dealing with a client that liked to play with biological weapons. Maybe they were the designated delivery guys for a bunch of genetically engineered killing machines. Maybe they would be stuck in the middle of a rainforest for months. Still, there was something familiar about working with Orion by now and Marcus kind of appreciated that.

With the previous two assignments, Yassen Gregorovich had been around. Now the most recent member of the executive board still kept an eye on things but left most of the details in Orion's hands. The kid was young for it, but he did a pretty decent job and Marcus didn't mind helping where he could. The kid was a fast learner and grateful for any advice he got.

Not a normal teenager by any means but then, no normal teenager would have survived to graduate Malagosto, either.

Marcus wasn't overjoyed when the intel on the mines turned out to be absolute shit and they had to do it themselves to get it right, but even that left some convenient opportunities as well.

Mace took the chance to gauge the kid's formal education while Marcus and Shale handled the recon mission with Krüger. The kid was a trained killer, they all knew that. Good with disguises, too, spoke several languages fluently, a well-trained fighter for an adult and damn impressive for someone his age, but Marcus was curious about the rest of it as well.

"He soaks up information like a sponge," Mace reported. "Malagosto didn't go too in-depth about medical stuff that wasn't straight-up meant for torture or to keep yourself alive for long enough to escape, but he listened and picked up on it fast."

That matched the impression Marcus got as well. Fast learner – by nature or by necessity, either way – and willing to listen to anyone who would take the time to teach him. Well, Marcus suspected the kid would be a lot less happy to listen to someone teaching him how to kill, but he would still listen. Gregorovich wouldn't have put up with anything else.

It was reassuring. Orion was squeamish for an assassin, which was kind of understandable given his age, but he was willing to listen and learn. Marcus could work with that. Train the kid up right and he would hopefully survive a lot longer and Marcus' team would get to work with someone who knew them and their methods. Win-win for everyone involved.

Working that closely with someone directly involved with the executive board wasn't safe by any means, but no part of their job was. At least it paid a lot better than their usual assignments, too.

All in all, Marcus decided, the risk was more than worth it.

* * *

How Ben Daniels found himself in Smithers' workroom, he wasn't sure. He had been staring at a report that definitely wasn't going to write itself, had wandered out of his office for a cup of coffee, and now he was … there. Surrounded by a presumably-organised mess of bits and pieces; half-completed gadgets and ordinary office supplies that probably hurt you if you tried to borrow something without permission.

Okay, maybe that wasn't entirely the truth. The office supplies, sure. That Ben didn't know how he had found himself there … less so.

Like Ben, Smithers had apparently decided to work through his lunch break. The rest of the room was empty, with just the two of them there.

"Agent Daniels," the man greeted him. "I didn't know you had been given another assignment."

With his cover blown, Ben had been pulled from the Hart operation. He didn't really mind. He was about ready for something new, anyway. It was just the circumstances that hadn't been too good.

Ben shrugged. He had long since learned that there was very little going on at MI6 that Smithers didn't know about. "I haven't. Not yet, anyway." He hesitated. "You worked with Alex, didn't you? Alex Rider."

Something in Smithers' heavy features shifted. He looked a little tired but mostly regretful. "A wonderful boy, Alex. He was always a delight. Adult agents, you're all the same. Pens, mobile phones, watches – there is very little challenge in your types, you know. Now, a fourteen-year-old boy … he was a joy to create things for. He wasn't allowed weapons, of course, Mr Blunt was quite clear on that, but he was a resourceful boy. SCORPIA, I'm afraid, did not have the same qualms about arming him."

Ben nodded slowly. It was odd, trying to join the thought of the fourteen-year-old at SAS selection with Gregorovich's apprentice and now the image that Smithers was painting, too. The Cub that Ben had known had been pretty quiet for a teen, though in retrospect and with more of the background available, that was really no surprise. The boy he had met on Santa Catarina had obeyed Gregorovich's commands without hesitation, so used to reading the man that he could predict the orders without a single word spoken out loud. The boy – Orion, Ben supposed – had also let him go when he should have shot him, and he had done it knowing the likely price.

Ben wished he had known the Alex Rider that Smithers talked about now. He thought he would have liked the kid.

He doubted there was much Smithers was willing to share. He seemed protective of Alex even now. But that was all right and Ben understood. There were enough people out there picking apart every single aspect of Alex Rider's past without adding another one to the list.

Instead Ben sat down slowly on a chair and made sure to give Smithers plenty of time to warn him about potential traps. "What kind of gadgets do you give a teenager, anyway?"

Smithers smiled and Ben suspected the man probably knew why he asked. That question he didn't seem to mind, though, because his expression shifted to fond reminiscence instead.

"Oh, that was the delightful part. Figuring out just that. You know, I can put half a dozen gadgets in a good mobile phone, but a pack of bubble gum? That one was truly remarkable. Then there was the -"

Ben Daniels spent the rest of his lunch break in Smithers' workroom, listening to the man weave poetry about his creations. And when he left again half an hour later, he felt a little better and a little more ready to get back to writing his report.

* * *

Marcus really didn't like the hyenas. They were noisy, they were big, and they were a lot more intelligent than they had any right to be. They observed, they had enough brain power to draw conclusions, and all the evidence Marcus needed of that was the careful balancing act they did of unnerving anyone they could but never posing enough of a threat that the bracelets had to be used.

None of the guards dared complain too loudly since Rensburg wouldn't listen and Krüger _liked_ the damn killing machines, but Marcus heard enough.

Sometimes he could swear they were watching him. Well, they watched everyone, but he could swear they paid him extra attention. Krüger, too, come to think of it. And Rensburg. Even Orion, though that seemed to be slightly less … calculating in nature. More tolerant. Maybe because the kid had somehow managed to attract the attention of one of the juvenile hyenas. Maybe they had decided to adopt him, and wouldn't that be fun to try and explain to Cossack?

Marcus watched as Orion settled down on a chair with a small stack of sandwiches and a notebook to work on something or another, and he was still watching as Orion's new best friend bounced her way to him and went straight for the stack of sandwiches.

Orion quickly brought them out of range before she could reach them. Marcus was mildly impressed by his reflexes. He was too far away to hear the kid talk but his body language spoke plenty.

Adams, wandering over, seemed to have spotted the same.

"Is he trying to negotiate for his lunch and some peace and quiet?"

"Looks like it to me," Marcus agreed.

"Huh."

Orion and the hyena seemed to have reached an agreement, and the unorthodox guard dog wandered off with a sandwich. Orion sensibly kept the rest close as he returned to the notebook.

Marcus kept staring. "Did anyone tell him they aren't tame?"

"Did anyone tell the hyena?"

Good point.

Marcus wondered if they really would end up having to explain to Cossack why his second in command had adopted a hyena. Maybe he could delegate that to Adams.

* * *

It took a while for Crux to get used to a permanent position at Malagosto. She was used to giving orders and running a business. She was hardly used to being around that many people on a daily basis, and the _students …_

Had she ever been that young and naïve? She liked to think that wasn't the case, but she preferred not to ask those instructors she remembered from her own time there. Crux had been pleasantly surprised by Orion, a delightful blank slate full of potential. She should have realised that Yassen Gregorovich would have hand-picked his student and claimed someone far better than what Malagosto would normally produce.

No matter. She took Dr Three's patient advice and instilled a permanent sense of fear in them – the best way to handle any sort of student, really – and they at least had discipline and incentive to learn.

Some of them even had potential. She could pinpoint three or four that would likely turn into highly-competent operatives with some luck and a lack of overconfidence. They were not there yet, but that was why they were at the school. To learn, as any student should.

She knew Dr Three's textbooks by heart, all of them some of the best works available within the field, and she ensured her students would learn at least enough to be useful. She could hardly test them on everything, but … enough, at least.

Orion had been squeamish about torture but she knew that he had read every page in those books and gone through every diagram and illustration. He was too good of a student not to.

Crux thought she might quite come to enjoy life at Malagosto eventually. It was very different from her life the past decade, but … pleasant. Comfortable.

Staring at her students, willing to learn but still too _old_ to ever be able to access their full potential the way Orion might, she still found herself genuinely missing the child.

* * *

Lolali: The cut scene ended up being mostly integrated into the first bit of the interlude (and worked much better that way), so it won't get posted separately. But it was pretty much the middle half of Kurst's section as it is now.

Next: Part two.


	53. Interlude: Parallels, part II

A/N: As always, thank you for your reviews and for putting up with this monster! :)

* * *

Adams' boss looked unsettled when he returned from the meeting with Cossack. Shale, too, though he hid it better, and that wasn't as much unsettled as distracted, and that was pretty normal when he had been given a particularly unusual shot to work out.

Shale liked his little puzzles, but if that made him happy …

Adams focused on his boss instead. He expected he would know what was going on soon enough and caught Marcus' slight nod immediately. Marcus vanished outside and Adams followed along, grabbing his bag of tools as he went. It was always nice with a cover.

"Where to, boss?"

Marcus glanced at the bag. "Anything that needs fixed?"

Adams shrugged. "There's always something that needs fixed. Third antenna, east sector's been getting a bit touchy lately."

"East sector, then."

Neither spoke as they headed through the tall grass that slowly gave way to rainforest. More civilised than the stuff beyond the estate's borders, with proper paths here and there, but definitely still wild.

It was a bit of a walk with the antenna at the very edge of the border of the estate and hidden well enough that someone had to know the exact location. It was a tall, thin thing that blended in easily with the trees around it. A soft sound from Adams' scanner let him know when they came in range, though he had worked on enough of the things by now that he could spot it even through the camouflage.

They were decent technology, very secure, and was part of what kept the hyenas from going anywhere while still keeping track of any trespassers, but they really didn't like the climate much.

Adams dropped his bag on the ground and settled down, already looking over the base of the tower where most of the important bits were hidden. Marcus followed a moment later.

It didn't look entirely like a moisture problem for once, Adams noted. More like something had chewed on it. He wouldn't be surprised if it was one of the hyenas. They would need to look into something a little more durable to protect it, otherwise he didn't give it more than a month or two before something serious failed, helped along by the hyenas or not.

"So, ex-girlfriend pregnant?" he asked when Marcus didn't talk.

Marcus snorted. "Fuck you."

"Well, that'd probably cut down on the pregnancy risk," Adams said absently. He reached for a screwdriver. "Those bite marks look like the right size for a hyena to you or is it just me?"

"Wouldn't surprise me," Marcus admitted. "Intelligent little bastards."

Well, _little_ probably wasn't the right word but he could agree with the sentiment. He finished with the last screw and removed the outer panel. One of the bite marks had dug under it. Not much, but just enough. The hyenas had strong teeth and jaws and the metal panel was pretty thin compared to that. The dent was just enough to leave a slight bit of unevenness where the metal would normally fit snugly against the rest of the base. Just enough to let the rain seep in.

Intelligent little bastards, indeed.

There was redundancy in the system, the antennas to keep the hyenas from going any further as well as the main signal from the house that kept them within a certain radius but the hyenas didn't know that. They had, however, obviously managed to work out that something stopped them right where those antennas were.

It could have been a coincidence but Adams doubted it. Wannabe Doctor Frankenstein had made them more intelligent and they clearly knew how to use it.

Maybe Orion had the right idea, making friends with them.

"So?" Adams asked when the silence stretched out. "New assignment?"

"Sort of." Marcus hesitated. "I either just got us all killed or got us a promotion. I'm not sure."

Adams paused in the middle of rummaging for the appropriate spare parts in his bag of bits and pieces. "That sounds interesting."

"It – yeah." There was little information in Marcus' reply, not that Adams was surprised. If Marcus and Shale had been summoned alone, they likely had orders to stay quiet about the details. Marcus was pushing it already as it was.

Adams made a non-committal sound and returned to his hunt for spare parts. Maybe another layer of waterproofing, too. Something to stop the rain if that panel _accidentally_ got damaged again. "Orion did look pretty rattled the last couple of times he went to see Cossack alone."

"Yeah," Marcus agreed again.

Adams supposed that was a good sign, if Orion was involved. Anyone else, it might have been a warning sign, but whatever classes SCORPIA gave their assassins in how to be cold-blooded psychopaths, Orion clearly hadn't been paying attention. He got attached. To Cossack, to their team, even to that damn hyena. Enough so that he had gone up against Zeljan Kurst instead of leaving his team with the blame for the island fuck-up.

Adams was pretty sure no one else would have done the same. Working on SCORPIA's largest operations paid well, much better than being just a grunt-level combat team in the Middle East had done, but the risks increased with the salary. There was never any solid proof, of course, just rumours, but sometimes people, entire teams had vanished without a trace, written off as expendable in the face of whatever obscene amount of money some client or another had paid to see an operation succeed.

Cossack had pretty solid control of Orion but not that much. Not enough that the kid would condemn people he knew. Adams wasn't the best at reading people, and maybe he was wrong, but he didn't think so.

Or maybe Orion just hadn't been let in on any plan to remove the team after they had served their purpose, but Adams doubted it. The kid was smart and knew Cossack. He could read the man well enough to predict that sort of thing. Adams hoped so, at least.

Not much he could do about it, anyway. "Suppose we'll find out soon enough," he settled on.

Another bit of rummaging through the bag of wondrous junk revealed the cheap camera he always kept around and he handed it to Marcus. "Here, snap some photos of this. I need it proper documented when I do the report."

Marcus' lips twisted, just slightly. Then he set to work, looking a little less rattled than before. Adams counted that as a win. All they could do now was hope their boss had made the right decision.

* * *

The email popped up in between an invitation for a meeting Joe Byrne didn't plan to attend and a tired notice from the IT department about why highly-trained intelligence officers shouldn't click on strange links in emails.

He glanced at the topic and stilled.

 _You have one day to pull your agents from Dubai before SCORPIA does it for you._

The sender and message itself were empty, and Joe was sure that their tech wizards would find nothing of use. Nothing to track the message. They didn't need to, either. The CIA only had one operation going on in Dubai at the moment, and Joe wasn't about to risk that one. Even the fact that someone knew about the operation was enough. The warning was too clear. Too deliberate.

It was no lucky guess. The operation was compromised. Someone knew and had enough incentive to warn them. Not enough to provide irrefutable proof that it wasn't just a lucky guess, but good enough that he couldn't ignore it. Joe didn't know who or why, and right now it didn't matter. They could try to work it out later.

For now, he had six agents in Dubai to get to safety and very little time to do it in.

* * *

Shale was a pragmatic man. Most of SCORPIA's soldiers were. He did not have any strong feelings about his job one way or the other, though he enjoyed the puzzle and accomplishment of nailing a particularly difficult shot.

He had a good team, good commanding officers, the job paid well, and the operative that seemed to have adopted them was a little young but a good kid all around.

Travelling as family, even half-brothers, was – odd. Shale had little family left to speak of. Some aunts and uncles. Cousins, some of which he hadn't actually met. His father had died young, and his mother had been – difficult. Shale hadn't been home since he had joined the army. He hadn't missed it, either.

And now he had a fifteen-year-old assassin posing as his half-brother and doing a damn good job of it. The hair colour matched pretty well, and with brown eyes and a tan … it was hard to argue for sure that they weren't related.

It was a weird thought that the kid that looked like any other teenager was the same boy that regularly practised hand-to-hand combat against Yassen Gregorovich. He lost resoundingly, of course, but still. There was real skill behind it. The kid had been trained well.

It was also the same kid that had fallen asleep against Shale in a beaten-up old pick-up truck and reminded him that trained assassin or not, Orion was still just a child by most standards. He still needed the sleep. He was still growing. He still didn't have the bulk of an adult.

The team had adopted the kid when he had stood up for their commander, but that wasn't what went through Shale's mind when he considered their assignment and gave the darts to Orion.

He wasn't blind. Orion didn't like to kill. Whatever SCORPIA had trained the boy to be, he wasn't a killer. Maybe in a few years. Maybe not. That wasn't really Shale's concern.

Orion had a lot of blood on his hands already. He would have plenty more if Gregorovich's plan worked. For now nobody on the team was in any hurry to add to that.

Shale had plenty of kills to his name. A few more mattered nothing to him but they would make a world of difference to a weary, exhausted kid that should never have been trained as an assassin in the first place.

* * *

Marcus spent a week on edge, waiting on news from Shale and Orion both. The tension really didn't ease even when they returned, mission accomplished to the letter.

One of Marcus' people had been directly involved in the assassination of a member of SCORPIA's executive board.

It was one thing to know the plan on a purely theoretical level. It was something else to have one of his snipers return with Yassen Gregorovich's second in command and know they had just committed SCORPIA's version of treason. Even if it had been on the order of another member of the board.

If anyone found out – if anyone connected the assassination with them …

… Marcus would just have to trust that Orion and Gregorovich knew what they were doing. Because right now he was in way over his head and didn't have the first idea of what to do.

* * *

Marc Damon got to break the news to his boss. It was getting into the evening in Australia, but Ethan Brooke had yet to leave for the night. There was still a lot to clean up after Winston Yu. There would be for months to come.

"Sorry to interrupt, sir, but SCORPIA seems to have misplaced one of their board members."

Brooke paused, fingers lingering on a report printed in Braille. "Misplaced?"

"Yes, sir. There was a kidnapping a couple of days ago in France, some wealthy guy, pretty professionally done. The French looked into it, then looked a little closer. They've positively identified the victim as Duval. Apparently he's lived just a little south of Paris for the past twenty years."

One of the more elusive members of SCORPIA's board. Just like no one had been able to prove Winston Yu's place on the board, no one had been able to get solid, reliable confirmation of Duval's identity, and not for lack of trying. The French took his treason about as well as ASIS took Brendan Chase's.

Now they had found the man, but only after he had already been kidnapped, and they had found out he had been right under their noses to boot. Marc could imagine the French were furious.

"Any leads?"

"None, sir. It was professionally done. The staff were either killed or shot with sedative darts. It looks like it was carried out by two people, and they were out of there within fifteen minutes of the first shot being fired. There has been no trace since."

That left a long, long list of candidates and they both knew it. Of course, it also had to be someone who had managed what the rest of the intelligence world apparently hadn't and positively identified Duval in the first place.

"We can't rule out the French," was Brooke's first comment. "They have framed outside forces for their own operations before. It could be an inside job. It could be one of SCORPIA's numerous enemies. We can't rule out that it was an assassination disguised as a kidnapping, either."

"That leaves a pretty broad field, sir."

"Well, then we better -

* * *

"- Start narrowing down the suspects, won't we?" Joe Byrne said bluntly. The agent that had spoken, fairly new to high-level intelligence work, looked chagrined.

"Yes, sir."

Joe sighed. Sometimes he missed the Cold War, just a little. Everything had been more black and white back then. The agents had been a lot less whiny, too. "Listen up. If tracking down Duval had been easy, someone would have done it before. The man lived right under the noses of the French intelligence community for _twenty years_ , and trust me, that's not because someone was incompetent. Duval's fake identity was more genuine than most of your real ones are. Whoever did this was good. Good enough to get the intel, track down the man, and carry it out without leaving any kind of evidence. It could be an intelligence agency. It could be a rival. It could be an inside job. It could be a diversion. We don't know and until we do, we don't know what we're dealing with."

"Kroll, Yu, Duval," Martino mused. "Yu could have been non-SCORPIA related, and Duval is probably going to stay alive until they've squeezed everything out of him, but that's a lot of openings on the executive board recently."

"And that's something we can't afford to rule out, either," Joe agreed. "SCORPIA's made a lot of enemies. It could be an attack on the organisation and not just on Duval. Start with the French. It's just a little too convenient that it happened on their soil and they knew the real identity of the victim so fast when he's apparently been there for two decades without anyone having a clue. They're damn good at their job, and any agency that can get one of the executive board to talk has a goldmine of information on their hands."

"The French have already denied any knowledge of the operation," Andrew said.

"And so would we, if we'd pulled off that sort of thing." Joe's expression hardened. "The French. Then everyone else in order of likelihood. Move it, people. You want to go home tonight? You find us a lead."

Nobody groaned. They were all used to it by now. It would be some long days until they started to find enough pieces of the puzzle to get an idea of what they were even looking at.

* * *

Marcus was used to targets that had numbers in their favour. Sometimes the target was only one person, sometimes two, but for the most part even an individual target had security. Someone who had pissed off enough people to earn SCORPIA's attention also tended to know they had made enemies and prepared accordingly.

Van Rensburg's compound was decent-sized. It wasn't exactly short on people. On the grand scale of things, it was still a pretty easy job. The only attack anyone expected was barely-trained local insurgents. Not a professionally trained military team, and certainly not one with inside knowledge.

Like shooting fish in a barrel.

They had plenty of supplies and ammunition, enough that they didn't need to get Orion or Gregorovich to procure some more outside of the usual channels. Wouldn't do to draw unwanted questions, after all. A bit of substitution would handle anything they might be short on. With two people trained in demolition on his team, they always had explosives lying around, and Marcus himself had always found fragmentation grenades to be a universal problem solver.

There was something reassuring about planning an attack. With everything that had happened, it was a nice break from the sort of politics they were tangled up in now. He doubted Orion would like it much, but the kid would still go through with it. Gregorovich had trained him well.

It would be better than letting that virus out in the wild, at least.

Marcus spent an afternoon going through their supplies, just in case. Mace kept him company, using the time to split packs of explosive into smaller packages, the perfect amount for blowing up a decent-quality door.

"Have you noticed how Orion's assignments tend to end up with things exploding?" Mace remarked.

Marcus glanced over. Considered the question and their past missions with the boy. Miami, blow up the mansion. Santa Catarina, erase all evidence. Now this.

Huh.

"Kid's got good taste. I kind of missed it," Marcus admitted. "It gets a little restless, handling security."

This was familiar. High-adrenaline, kill everything, leave no evidence. Just the sort of thing Marcus liked. Nice and clean. Well, for a given definition of the term, anyway. And there was something to be said for getting to play with explosives and not have to worry about taking prisoners.

Identifying all the bodies afterwards might be an issue but they would deal with that headache when they got that far.

They didn't have numbers on their side, but they had inside knowledge, training, equipment, and the element of surprise. Worst case, they would take some injuries. Anything worse than that, and Marcus had done a shit job of keeping his men in shape.

It was Marcus' favourite sort of assignment.

He wondered idly if the missions Orion had done for MI6 had ended up quite that spectacularly fun. It wasn't a very spy way to do things to Marcus' knowledge, but he could be wrong.

Maybe he would ask one day. He suspected there were probably some good stories somewhere in the kid's past.

* * *

Brendan Chase had never entirely expected his home – isolated, fortified, anonymous – to remain safe but time had allowed him to grow complacent.

It had been a risk to remain in Australia. He had expected an attack the first year. The second as well. As the years passed with no sign at all that any outsiders knew of his location, he had grown lax.

That was what had seen Duval kidnapped, too, Brendan was sure of that now. He wasn't stupid enough to believe his fellow members on the executive board did not suspect the location of his home. Brendan himself had known of Duval's château for years.

Someone had targeted Duval and wrung every last bit of information from him. Duval had broken, and Duval had known exactly where Brendan had made his home.

Thankfully, he hadn't been so lax as to let his contingency plans slide. He had safe-houses, entirely unused identities, untouched bank accounts. The place, a former cattle station, was a raging inferno – by Brendan's own hands, because he wasn't about to allow anything to fall into enemy hands – and most of the guards had been killed in the attack. That could all be replaced.

Brendan Chase himself escaped. He picked up a prisoner and spent just long enough interrogating the man in a remote location to confirm what he already suspected. ASIS. Maybe they hadn't been behind Duval's kidnapping, but someone had been a little too generous when it came to sharing information.

Brendan Chase left Australia less than four hours after the attack. Nile would depart Lagos within the hour. The operation in Nigeria was stable enough that Brendan had no qualms about pulling his second in command from the place.

The rest of the executive board would need to be be notified; a meeting arranged. It was not yet an emergency but still something that required an actual meeting. Duval had been an unfortunate situation. Now it had become clear that they had a security problem. No one knew how much Duval had spilled in interrogation. SCORPIA had to assume the worst.

Security would need upgraded. The entire executive board would be targets, as would any active operations known to Duval and any lucrative side businesses.

It would be expensive. And when SCORPIA discovered exactly who had been behind it, they would reclaim that cost in blood and lives.

* * *

Tom Harris had a schedule for Christmas. He would visit his aunt and uncle and their family on the twenty-fourth, celebrate Christmas Day with his mother and maternal grandparents, Boxing Day with his father and paternal grandparents at his father's new place, and he planned to spend the twenty-seventh locked in his room and ignoring every single attempt to get him to be social.

At least he wasn't alone. Jerry, tanned and home for the holidays for a full week, looked about as tired when he saw that schedule as Tom felt.

"British weather, British Christmas, feuding family," he said. "Really missed this."

They had separate rooms but Tom planned to spend most of his time in Jerry's room. Jerry had brought half a backpack full of snacks with him from Italy and they shared that as they talked and caught up on life.

The sun set early that time of year, and night had long since fallen by the time Tom finally confessed what he had been thinking about for months.

"I'm leaving," he said. "As soon as I can. I know I have to finish school first and all, but afterwards – I don't know what I want to do, anyway. I just need to get away."

From their parents, from MI6, from the ghosts. He didn't doubt someone was listening even now. Didn't doubt it and didn't care.

Jerry nodded. "You're welcome to crash at my place for as long as you need. We'll find a mattress, see about getting you a job teaching English or something. Give you time to think."

 _Away from this_ , he didn't say. He didn't need to. This week would be the longest Jerry had spent in Britain in years.

Jerry rolled with things. Tom tried to do the same and managed for the most part. Jerry had taught him to and sometimes he thought that was the only way he had managed to live with his parents for that long.

"Jack offered the same this summer," Tom said. "I can't work over there, but …"

He trailed off and tried to find the best way to explain it. He was about to break a lot of stuff in the paperwork MI6 had made him sign. He didn't care about that, either.

"She's staying in a safe-house right now. The CIA arranged for it a couple of months ago. Alex -" he felt his throat tighten, the realisation that he would probably never see his best friend again slowly sinking in, "Alex was a spy, his entire family was, but he didn't get a choice about it. He ran away because he had enough. He's – tangled up in things now. That's why Jack got moved to a safe-house. He's made enemies. They were worried she might be a target."

Jerry was quiet for a few seconds. Nodded slowly. "And you?"

"MI6 keeps an eye on me in case Alex gets in touch. They don't care about my safety but they did add a few more agents to watch me." Tom sounded bitter even to his own ears. "They'll probably want a _talk_ with me for saying even that much."

Jerry nodded again. "You still have a few years to decide. Lots of things could change. Meanwhile, get a job. Start saving. It kept me going until I found a real job once I left. The first couple of months get expensive. And it'll get you out of the house."

Easy and practical, the same way Jerry himself had done it. Tom had known but it helped to hear it out loud. He was already determined to go through with it but this was a welcome reminder that it could actually be done.

Get a job. Get out of the house. Start saving. And the first chance he got, Tom Harris would tell MI6 exactly what he thought about them and then get the hell out of Britain.

* * *

Jack had kept her phone number. She had promised Alex, and the CIA knew that, because the phone number moved with her. It had been redirected to her mobile phone for Christmas, celebrated in her parents' house – for sale, now – and with her sister and the rest of her family there for company. They had all arrived two days early to help clean up and pack and fix up the house where it needed it.

Jack knew Alex wouldn't call, knew he was smarter than that, knew he would be too worried about her safety. Logically she knew that Christmas the year before had been goodbye, that he couldn't afford to keep any ties to his past.

Staring at the phone lying silent and innocent on the table, she still wondered how he was doing and if he ever thought of her.

* * *

Alex Rider was asleep by the time the private jet was ready to depart Kisangani, due for Abu Dhabi. It was dawn, but no one had been given much time to rest, much less sleep. The _Fer de Lance_ had already departed and would follow the northern coast of Africa to Alexandria. Danube and Ussuri were still working to remove the last bits of evidence of SCORPIA's presence, Commander Hill left in charge of the two teams.

The jet had plenty of seats to spare and Alex had curled up on two of them, the wide armrests pushed up to create a short, makeshift bed.

Yassen had picked the window seat across from him but paused before he settled down. Most of the hair dye from the mission in France had washed out already. Some lingered but most of Alex's hair colour, a much lighter brown only a few shades off from blond, was natural. The darkening of the hair that sometimes happened with age, Yassen supposed. Maybe it was simply more noticeable now that it had been allowed to grow a bit again.

It was a strange thought that the child was less than two months from sixteen. He had been with Yassen for a year and a half. For all that the boy had killed and grown and accepted the future position of co-head of SCORPIA, part of Yassen still knew that Alex Rider was very, very young.

Unseen by the rest of the occupants of the plane, Yassen reached out and brushed a lock of hair away from Alex's face. Traced his cheek and the familiar features that were fast growing out of their child-like appearance and into the sharper angles of an adult.

Alex's breathing never changed, slow and steady.

Exhaustion, mental and physical. He had done well, though, and Yassen never looked away as he settled down and the plane prepared for take-off. Experience had taught them both that Alex would need peace and privacy to break down later, and Yassen would ensure he got it. For now, the boy would need to keep himself together for long enough to get through the debriefing that awaited them.

Alex didn't stir. Not when the engines came to life, not when they picked up speed down the runway, not when the plane took off.

He had been given a light tranquillizer. Not enough to knock him out but enough to ease him into a more natural sleep once the opportunity arose. Teenagers needed more sleep than adults as it was, and Yassen was well aware that Alex was kept more or less perpetually on the verge of sleep deprivation during assignments. His body had adapted but still took the chance to rest when it could. The emotional exhaustion did not help, either.

Alex Rider hadn't enjoyed the job he had been given but he had carried it out to the best of his ability. He had been Orion for a while, and Yassen didn't doubt the boy would be reminded of the attack in his nightmares for weeks to come.

Eventually the nightmares would fade. He would grow used to it. Perhaps it was not the life John Rider would have wished for his son, but it was the best chance of survival that Yassen could offer him. In an ideal world, Alex Rider would have grown up speaking French, raised by his parents under new identities and happily oblivious to the realities of life. In an ideal world, Yassen would never have met the boy and would never have seen things carry on to a point where life under SCORPIA's control was the safer option when the alternative was MI6.

Yassen had long since accepted that the world was not an ideal place. Alex Rider had slowly learned to accept the same. He still struggled with it but he was learning, bit by bit.

The plane levelled out. Most of Sagitta were asleep by then as well, with some exceptions.

Aranda moved carefully to Alex's side, a glance at Yassen before he focused on the boy. Partly for permission. Part natural caution. Respect for what Yassen was capable of.

The man was careful not to wake his sleeping patient. Just observed him for a while. Breathing, any movements, any sign of something wrong. Alex inspired a remarkable amount of protectiveness in the people around him. It would serve him well in the future.

Finally Aranda moved back a step. Glanced at Yassen again.

Yassen raised an eyebrow in a silent question. The man seemed to mentally debate it for a few seconds, then make up his mind.

"He's fifteen."

"I am well aware." Cool, blue eyes watched the medic. To his credit, the man didn't back down. "He passed resistance to interrogation on his birthday."

Yassen didn't need to add the last part but he did, anyway. He could see the exact moment when the meaning behind really registered. Alex Rider had passed resistance to interrogation on his fifteenth birthday. That meant SCORPIA had put a fourteen-year-old child through the closest thing to actual torture they could without causing permanent damage.

The team had known on some level, Yassen suspected. If not, they simply hadn't put the clues together, or they hadn't wished to. Either way, Yassen considered it a useful reminder. Alex Rider was a child. He was also a trained killer and had graduated at the same standards as any one of SCORPIA's adult operatives. The team had proven loyal so far. It would be a good reminder of exactly the sort of things they would get involved with if they remained at Alex's side. SCORPIA treated its combat teams like the soldiers most of them were. Its assassins worked under very different rules.

The medic's eyes hardened slightly. Yassen was mildly curious if the man would actually object to Alex's treatment out loud.

"He's still just a child. If pushed too far, too soon, he'll break."

Not quite an objection, but something phrased to present it as being in SCORPIA's best interest, too. And he had avoided accusing Yassen of being the one pushing Alex too far. A little clumsily, perhaps, but he had managed, even if the meaning carried across quite well. Even combat teams could manage some degree of diplomacy when faced with a member of the executive board, it seemed.

"He is also SCORPIA's property and in time, should things go well, its future chief executive."

Clear between the lines but not spoken out loud was the sharp reminder that just like Alex was not just a child but a trained killer, he was also Yassen's apprentice and second in command, and by extension Yassen's to do with as he pleased.

Aranda's lips were little more than a thin line. Then he nodded once, sharply. Unhappy with the situation but smart enough to know when to back down.

The team was aware of Yassen's plans to take over. It was an odd thought that the child sleeping in front of them might one day hold the future of SCORPIA in his hands. It was a strange enough concept for Yassen, who had planned for the possibility in the first place. It would be all the more so for people who had not seen the training Alex had been put through. There would be little room for mercy. Not if Alex should stand a realistic chance of surviving in that sort of world.

Aranda's attention lingered on Alex for a few more moments before he took the dismissal for what it was and returned to his own seat. Yassen turned his thoughts to their immediate plans instead. It would be six hours to Abu Dhabi and the emergency board meeting that had been arranged for the following morning. Plenty of time to consider exactly what to tell his esteemed colleagues. Plenty of time to consider the young teenager asleep in front of him.

Hunter had been as kind as he could afford to be to his teenage apprentice. He had been harsh at times, of course. Once to turn Yassen from his path, but the other times had been for Yassen's own sake. Perhaps Yassen himself had not always been aware of it at the time, but it had served him well later on. It was not a kind way to train a child, but it was better than the alternatives, and Yassen had spent enough time observing Alex to know what he had to work with. Like Yassen, Alex was a survivor. He would adapt. He already had. It was Yassen's job now to ensure that Alex would get the breaks necessary to continue to do so.

Yassen brought out his laptop and settled down to work.

Across from him, Alex Rider slept on.

* * *

Hi: I tried to fit in the request in this part, but it really didn't want to cooperate, unfortunately :/

Night Riders: I looked at the full length of the draft for the interlude and decided that nope, no way I was going to edit that much in one go. So it got split up. I've had a decent plot outline from the beginning, although I did have to re-plot the ending after Alex and Ben's reunion went somewhat worse than planned. Yassen's ultimatum/offer was planned right from the start; it just took a little longer than expected to get there. Turns out Alex's assignments took a lot more words to write than I'd expected them to.

Next: Alex had kind of hoped that being Yassen's second in command meant not dealing with the executive board anymore.


	54. The Architect

Alex returned to Abu Dhabi severely rattled. The mild tranquillizer had long since run its course but while the unnatural calm had vanished with it, Alex did feel slightly better. Still rattled, but better. He had slept most of the flight and only woken up shortly before they started their descent into Abu Dhabi.

"I need you to hold yourself together for one more day," Yassen told him quietly. "I will ensure you will have privacy afterwards, but you need to hold it together through the debriefing tomorrow."

Alex considered it for a moment. Nodded. Sleep had helped. He still felt the bone-deep exhaustion and weariness, the odd sense of feeling fragile in a way he couldn't describe, but he could push it aside for a while longer. He had to.

It was evening by the time they landed, and all Alex wanted to do was head straight to bed when they arrived at Yassen's temporary apartment. He took only long enough to grab a thorough shower and write the preliminary report for Yassen and the board, then he was out cold in the second bedroom and didn't wake up until the alarm went off entirely too early.

The executive board had been cut from six to five. Dr Three, Mikato, Kurst, Chase, and Yassen were all that remained, and from SCORPIA's point of view, Chase and Yassen had just barely dodged assassination attempts themselves.

At least Alex wouldn't be blamed this time. Hopefully. He assumed so, anyway, or Yassen wouldn't have risked it. SCORPIA had received a good part of the payment already with the arrival of the virus, which meant they wouldn't lose out on as much money on Operation Tisiphone as they could have. And they still had the virus. Alex didn't like it but he understood the logic. The virus had been with Yassen, not Rensburg. Its destruction would have been too suspicious.

As far as the executive board knew, as far as anyone knew, Duval had been kidnapped – likely by French intelligence services, but no one knew for sure – and broken under interrogation. Unfortunate, but there was nothing they could do now but limit the damage. The attack on Chase followed by the supposed strike against Yassen only ensured that no one would really doubt that explanation. Operation Tisiphone had been the only large-scale operation currently in progress, although there were several more in the early planning stages. If someone wanted to strike against SCORPIA, it would make sense to target the executive board and any on-going operations first.

Security at Malagosto would likely be upgraded, too, though that would be fairly far down the list of potential targets. That sort of attack would come with a number of severe headaches. Someone could still drop a missile on the place, but the political fallout of that would be … well. Alex certainly wouldn't want to be in the middle of that.

In reality, no one would target Malagosto or other SCORPIA properties, and Alex and Yassen knew that, but the rest of the executive board didn't, and they had to act based on what they knew to be the worst-case scenario. That a number of intelligence agencies had access to everything Duval had known.

By the time Yassen, Alex, and Sagitta had returned from the Congo, the rest of the executive board had already arrived in Abu Dhabi for an emergency meeting.

Alex wasn't present at the board meeting itself, but he did have strict orders to wait outside the meeting room with the guards.

"They want to debrief you as well," Yassen told him right before the meeting, bright and early the following morning. "They already received the reports from the few survivors of the attack on Chase and will get the man's own report at the meeting. You were in charge when the client was attacked. They have read your report but they wish to be able to debrief you in person."

Vague enough that no one would doubt their cover story – Alex and Sagitta were on another reconnaissance mission; they returned the moment they were alerted but too late to help – but specific enough that Alex got his orders just fine.

The executive board didn't blame him but they wanted to get to the bottom of things, and Alex might possess a piece of that puzzle.

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed.

Yassen vanished into the meeting room as the last arrival. The heavily armed guards took up their position by the door.

Alex hesitated for a moment, then went to stand by one of the tall panorama windows. If nothing else, it gave him something to look at that wasn't just a wall and a closed door. He did wonder if Duval's second in command had been debriefed. Probably. Thoroughly, too, he was sure, the moment Duval's disappearance had been confirmed. The man would have been the immediate suspect if it had been an inside job.

There was something soothing about watching the world far below. The tension in Alex's body remained, the ghosts of his nightmares and memories he still hadn't been given time to deal with, but it felt … distant, somehow, this far above the world.

Time drifted by. Alex didn't mind. It took three hours before the door opened again and Alex straightened. One of the guards motioned for him and Alex stepped inside the meeting room to feel five pairs of eyes watch his every move.

The atmosphere felt tense in a way it hadn't in Paris. Paris had been cold and still. Dead. This was … anger, Alex suspected. Low-key and smouldering and deadly. Duval's supposed weakness during interrogation had not gone over well. Alex wasn't the target but he still knew to step very carefully.

At least any sort of visible anxiety would be explained by the situation. His second failure of sorts, and Zeljan Kurst had been clear on the consequences last time. They would write off any nervousness as fear of punishment. Alex knew they weren't about to make him pay for it, knew they were focused on hunting down whoever had targeted them and that he was valuable as Yassen's second in command, but even then the undercurrent of dread still lingered.

"Sirs," he greeted.

"Your report." Mikato, sharp and to the point.

"Yes, sir. Commander Marcus' team along with myself were on a reconnaissance mission to the local villages. There had been rumours of strangers. We returned when the alarm went off. When we came within reach of the antennae on the client's estate, the bracelets meant to control the hyenas deactivated and fell off. By the time we reached the estate, the attack was over. Most of the buildings were on fire. In the areas we could enter, most of the client's security forces had been killed in their beds from fragmentation grenades, and those bodies we found of the night shift seemed to have been taken by surprise. We did not find any evidence of the attackers, but it was a highly professional job. The room clearing was done fast enough to minimise resistance. The client had been shot twice. There was no sign of anything missing from his office, but the destruction from the fragmentation grenade and explosives used to enter the room could have concealed it. We left when it became clear that there were no survivors and that the client's hyenas had discovered they were no longer restricted from attacking humans. We destroyed any remaining evidence that we had been there."

Alex kept his voice calm and level and mixed the lies with truth, the small details that would make it sound real and the broad strokes that the executive board wanted.

"Strangers?" Chase this time. For someone who had only just managed to escape an attempt on his life, he looked surprisingly well. Clearly furious, of course, though he mostly managed to hide it.

"We found none, sir," Alex responded. "We did not have the time to find out if they were simply random rumours or if someone had deliberately started them to draw the client's attention."

"The whole team was away?" Chase again.

Alex's expression shifted minutely into some hint of weary resignation. "The client was paranoid at best, sir. He barely trusted my team and he refused to allow Mr Gregorovich's teams on the estate. The client's own people could not be trusted to carry out the job to an acceptable level, so we had no choice but to do it ourselves. The intel provided by the client's people on previous occasions was useless. We split the team in two to get the job done faster. The client was adamant that the schedule should be kept."

Chase nodded, accepting the explanation. Yassen had told them plenty about the client's unfortunate quirks already. Alex's report had corroborated that.

"Were there any signs to the identity of the attackers?" Kurst, a hard look on his face.

"No, sir. If they took any casualties, they removed the bodies or burned them. Most of the evidence was gone when we arrived. What the fire didn't get, the hyenas did. They worked fast and efficient, no more than half an hour to our estimate from the first strike and until they were gone again. It looked like trained military or something good enough to match it. They didn't try to take prisoners, either, from the evidence we saw. They used fragmentations grenades pretty liberally. Even in the client's office. It didn't look like they were after evidence. It looked more like a surgical strike to take down an enemy."

Silence. The board knew most of it from the preliminary reports already, though Alex was sure they were trying to match his story with the attack on Chase.

"The target?"

Alex hesitated. "Unknown, sir. If it were the client, they clearly had strict orders to kill him. They shot him twice, just to be sure. If it were the virus, they didn't find it and made no attempt to get the intel from the client before they shot him. He had no signs of torture and they didn't have much time to interrogate him. It didn't seem like he was the target. He seemed like just another casualty. Either they were there to destroy everything, or the client was only a secondary target."

Chase's expression seemed to harden a bit but he didn't speak. Angry, but at least it was directed at the situation and not at Alex.

"An inside job?" Kurst pressed on.

"It's possible, sir," Alex admitted. "The attack was efficient. It could have been skill and training. It could have been in part because they had help from someone on the inside. We did a thorough check of everyone on the client's estate when we arrived and they all came up clear. We continued to keep an eye on them during our stay but there was no sign of suspicious activity."

Kurst nodded slowly but seemed satisfied with the answers for now.

"You mentioned the bracelets deactivated." Dr Three this time, his voice patient and almost kind as always.

"Yes, sir." Alex hesitated again. "Power was gone on the entire estate. That could have been the reason, but we suspect a dead man's switch of some sort. The bodies we found still had the deactivated bracelets on or they had fallen close by. Either the main power didn't go out until later, or the bracelets didn't fail when the power did. Doctor Cabrera mentioned that the client's own control key was made to his specifications. We thought it referred to the fact that it was a ring instead of a bracelet. He – may have been referring to more than just that."

"It would have suited his paranoia," Dr Three agreed. A glance at the rest of the board revealed no more questions, and the man nodded slightly. "Dismissed."

"Yes, sir." Alex kept the surge of relief from showing as he left the room and closed the door silently behind him.

The hallway was still, the guards still unmoving. Alex let out a soft, slow breath and felt the tension in his body fade with it. They had a good cover story and he trusted Sagitta to stick with it, but it was still nerve-racking.

Alex didn't go anywhere but drifted over to the broad windows again to watch the world outside as the meeting next door carried on. Yassen wanted him to stay. Alex preferred not to think about just how long he might be stuck waiting.

It was well past another two hours later before the meeting finally ended. Alex slipped back into a sort of casual at-ease position, a respectful distance away from the board members when they appeared. Some of them exchanged a few, low words before they went their separate ways.

Yassen glanced at Alex, who followed the silent summon.

"You did well," the man said.

"Thank you, sir," Alex replied. The other board members might have left but they weren't alone and he knew better than to let that respectful address slip.

"Danube and Ussuri have removed all evidence of SCORPIA's presence in the area," Yassen continued. "It will cover up any evidence of the failure. My esteemed colleagues on the board were quite pleased with the initiative."

They would be, too. Sweep the whole damn mess under the rug and focus on hunting down whoever had targeted them.

Silence descended as they made their way to the elevators. Then Yassen glanced briefly at him.

"Dr Three has requested our presence. The vaccine we received was still in its experimental stages, and you reacted strongly to it. He wishes to ensure no lasting physical damages. We do have quite a comprehensive record of your physical state before your exposure to it."

Of course they did, with the amount of time they had spent poking him. Alex doubted there was much they didn't know about him. He didn't comment on that, though. Not in public. Not after his second large failed operation.

"Yes, sir," Alex said instead, carefully respectful. "Today?"

It was past lunch and despite it all, Alex was hungry. He hadn't eaten since five that morning.

Yassen probably knew. He looked faintly amused. "In two hours. We have time for lunch."

Alex's stomach added its enthusiastic agreement. He would worry about the rest of the world later. Food had first priority.

* * *

Two hours and a good, solid lunch later – healthy, to Alex's slight regret, not junk food – found them at Malagosto.

The weather was mild and pleasant, sunny and not humid, and even with their host waiting for them, Alex found once more that he had missed the place.

They bypassed d'Arc's office, their appointment with Dr Three more important. Alex was sure Yassen didn't mind. Basic politeness might have brought them there normally, but with Yassen as a member of the executive board, it was no longer a requirement.

Alex didn't see any of the students but this time of day, they were probably in class. Not that he would have recognised any of them, anyway. He did wonder where Crux was and was slightly tempted to go look for her if he got the chance. He knew he wouldn't enjoy the lessons she taught but a familiar face would still be nice.

They met the doctor not at Malagosto's small clinic but in the man's own building, a delightful place full of wonderful memories to Alex of RTI and torture and death. Alex took a deep breath when they stepped inside and half expected to be greeted by the smell of gun smoke and blood.

There was no one but the three of them now. Something about it sent every one of Alex's instincts haywire.

Dr Three's office was a pleasant place with soft chairs and tea waiting on a small table. The man poured a cup for himself but didn't bother to do the same for Yassen. It wasn't like Yassen would have trusted it, anyway.

It was silent for long, uncomfortable minutes before their host finally spoke.

"I find it interesting," Dr Three said conversationally, "that Orion's favoured combat team was away from the client's estate at the time of the attack."

Alex stilled. Felt more than saw Yassen's mannerism shift from somewhat relaxed to instantly on edge.

That was no idle observation. There was a whole message in the one, slight remark and even Alex knew it. Dr Three had picked up on something and he was sure enough of it to voice it out loud to Yassen.

The man would not have mentioned a vague suspicion. He had to be sure to take the risk. More than that, he had to be certain of his own safety. Alex knew how Yassen responded to perceived threats to himself and Alex both, and Dr Three had to know it, too. That he would bring up his suspicions like that …

Yassen didn't break the silence. He could stay quiet for a long time. Far long than Alex could stand the oppressive feel of the room.

"The client was paranoid. We had to use every resource we had to make his deadline. Sir," Alex added belatedly.

"Perhaps. Orion, how many injections did I give you?" Dr Three asked. He sounded almost kind.

Alex didn't know what was wrong, but based on Yassen's sudden stillness, it was bad news. "Five, sir."

"Which ones?"

Alex tried to think back. At that moment, with both Yassen and Dr Three focused on his words, it was surprisingly hard. "Uh … a booster for the usual ones, boosters for meningitis and typhoid, and the first of my rabies vaccines. I got the second rabies shot and the cholera vaccine from Dr Javadi, and the same set from my team medic."

Which made four. Unless the booster for the usual ones included more than one injection. Alex hadn't considered it at the time, resigned to his fate, but it made him pause now.

Yassen's stillness hadn't changed. His voice when he spoke was deathly calm. "Doctor?"

"The fifth was a simple saline injection. I trust my point has been made."

The fact that he could have killed Alex at any time he pleased, that he'd had suspicions about them for possibly months or more and hadn't acted against them. That he could have made it look like an accident or illness, a slow-working poison that wouldn't have killed Alex until days or weeks later.

Maybe the doctor hadn't known for sure Yassen and Alex had plans, but he had been suspicious enough to begin to plan for it.

Based on Yassen's slow nod, he understood that just fine, too.

Alex didn't doubt there would be a number of blood tests and other fun check-ups from a non-SCORPIA associated doctor or two in his immediate future. Just to be sure.

Alex would feel better for it, too. He felt light-headed, the faint dizziness from standing up too fast, of sudden lack of blood to his head, except it wasn't lack of oxygen but the horrible realisation of how close he had come to death again. How easily Dr Three could have killed him and Alex would never have known why he was dying.

"You moved swiftly against Winston," Dr Three continued when the silence stretched on. "Opportunity, I suspect, and a result of his interest in young Orion."

Yassen didn't bother to deny it. "He had become a danger to Orion." Something about Yassen's response made it very clear that it was as much an explanation as a threat. Yu had become a threat to Alex and Yassen had taken care of it. If Dr Three became a threat a well …

"Indeed. Monsieur Duval, I believe, had grown somewhat complacent in his position. He trusted his own importance too much. It was a calculated risk that worked well with an executive board such as ours. Less so, it would seem, with someone trained as an assassin and not an intelligence agent."

Alex didn't speak. He let Yassen handle the conversation and just waited, watched, and listened for any sign that things were about to go horribly wrong. More than they were already, anyway. He had the feeling he was missing a lot of the meaning of their words, if nothing else because he didn't have years of history to draw on. Like always, he would have to trust that Yassen knew what he was doing. The story of his life these days.

"And Brendan … a gamble, I suspect? One that did not go as planned."

"ASIS proved less than competent in their ability to carry out a simple assassination."

Dr Three nodded. "It could be argued that Winston's assassination was personal, but not the rest. You never let it be personal after Hunter's demise, that was always what made you such an exceptional operative. We backed you into a corner with your promotion, I suspect, and so you fought back. We did not consider that perhaps you did not want the position, nor the … sometimes unfortunate politics that came with it. As retirement on our terms was not an option, you had no choice but to make it on yours. Ambitious for someone who never showed interest in ambition at all. I wondered if perhaps you simply meant to tear down all of SCORPIA to the ground, but it seems to me like you make an effort to target only the executive board."

Alex wondered how much was a very good guess and how much was just how well Dr Three knew Yassen. Neither of the two gave away anything in their expressions.

Dr Three must have seen something, anyway, because he continued. "The easier targets on the board have been taken out now. The harder yet remain. Mikato surrounds himself with security, and Brendan will grow paranoid. They will be difficult to target but not impossible. Zeljan will be a much harder matter. He has never made a secret of his ambitions and he is aware of the enemies he has made. His security detail and personal bodyguard are exceptionally skilled. As a number of my other esteemed colleagues have done, he has made a point to take an interest those students of Malagosto who show unusual potential. Julia made herself Nile's patron in his time there and during his first year as a new operative for this reason. Zeljan has done the same for several other operatives. Young Orion has been considered your protégé for the same reason. Loyal operatives, all of them."

Yassen's expression was utterly unreadable. "Your point, Doctor."

"You are skilled, we are both aware of this. Indeed, you have been one of the best assassins in the world for a number of years. I will warn you that Zeljan is far harder to target than you believe. You will find no weakness. He is well aware of the danger you pose; indeed, the danger that all of his esteemed colleagues pose. He will not underestimate you."

Alex had no idea of where Dr Three was going with that, but Yassen obviously did. "But he will underestimate Orion," he murmured. He glanced briefly at Alex, as did Dr Three.

"He will underestimate Orion once he is outside of your reach. More importantly, he will want to underestimate him. Zeljan nurses his grudges. The only thing that would please him more than to destroy Hunter's son in an act of revenge against a dead man is having that same child at his beck and call and utterly broken to the will of SCORPIA. Orion is a trained killer but he is also young. Even those aware of his training underestimate him. He is still but a child, trained to be obedient, and taught that any sign of disloyalty will result in his immediate execution. Such was the impression you so skilfully gave us."

 _\- Stockholm syndrome, close attachment to Cossack -_

"You wish to keep him with you." Alex could get nothing from Yassen's tone of voice, good or bad.

"You never developed the same fondness for this school as young Orion has," Dr Three replied. "SCORPIA is vast and powerful but this is its beating heart, its most skilled operatives. If you wish to claim SCORPIA for your own, as I suspect you do, you must accept the school for the importance it has. You have made few attachments in your life; fewer that still live. Orion's attachment will allow him to understand the needs of the school and its students in a way you will not. You will need that connection. Julia served as Malagosto's patron of sorts in many ways. Perhaps Orion will do the same. And once he is away from you … Zeljan's attention will be drawn. His desire for revenge will allow for nothing else."

It was a perfectly reasonably explanation and Alex didn't doubt that it was true. He also wasn't blind to the underlying reason.

 _Hostage exchange. Insurance of good behaviour._

With Alex within Dr Three's sight, the man could be reasonably sure Yassen wouldn't break their fragile, potential truce and decide to simply take out the doctor instead. Dr Three had taken a significant risk when he mentioned his suspicions. Of course he would want some kind of insurance now.

"A generous offer, to see to his training," Yassen said, deceptively calm.

 _Why?_ Alex translated.

"You have seen Zeljan's suggestions for additions to the board. Common criminals. They have no understanding of the demands of an organisation such as SCORPIA, nor the skills required to see to its continued survival."

Yassen nodded slowly. Alex hadn't seen the list of candidates himself, didn't even know the board was that far along in the process, but based on Yassen and Dr Three's reactions, it didn't sound impressive.

"Perhaps," Yassen agreed. "What is your price, Doctor?"

"Indeed, the core of the matter," Dr Three replied mildly. "A peaceful retirement. I have grown weary of politics. I would quite like to devote my retirement to research. The past few years have not left as much time for that as I've wished. Devote some time to training up a suitable replacement for Malagosto in young Crux. I am aware she worked well with you in Singapore, and Orion is terribly sentimental for an assassin."

Another sign Dr Three had either been on to them for months or was simply very, very good at planning for every contingency. Crux had been assigned to Malagosto within a month of Yassen's promotion. Possibly within days of Yu's assassination. It could have been earlier than that, too, Alex didn't know, but he suspected Dr Three had started to plan the moment he first suspected Yassen's motives.

Alex tried to imagine it, weeks or months at the doctor's side at Malagosto or wherever he happened to be at any given time, and he wanted to throw up. He remembered the books that had been part of their classes. He remembered resistance to interrogation.

And still he was just as aware that they might not have a choice. That Dr Three had two decades of experience with executive board politics and played the game like a master. That Alex's presence as part student, part hostage, part gesture of good intentions might be the only insurance good enough to guarantee Yassen wouldn't change his mind about a potential partnership.

Dr Three had made his own careful overtures of good intentions. Proof that he could have acted before and stopped them but had chosen not to. Alex would be Yassen's.

"I suspect," Yassen said, "that we will find a takeover significantly easier with your assistance as well."

That was not a question, Alex noticed, but more a vaguely ominous statement of fact. Yassen had just worked something out that Alex didn't have the first clue about how to even look for.

Dr Three smiled. It made him look kind. Harmless. "Malagosto's graduates are considered completely loyal to SCORPIA, and a second in command is expected to be loyal to his master above all else. I have been involved in training the majority of our students since we added practical experience with resistance to interrogation to the school curriculum, and I have made a point of taking a personal interest in the most promising ones."

Not just their lessons in torture and interrogation techniques, Alex understood, but resistance to interrogation. Every single one of SCORPIA's elite operatives had spent time in Dr Three's care. They had passed through those cells and spent weeks learning to fear the man while he took them apart mentally and physically until he knew their every weakness.

Everyone respected Dr Three, Alex realised as he caught up with what Yassen had worked out with far less information to go on. And for those elite operatives, that respect had been drilled into their very being, because they knew first-hand just what the man was capable of. Dr Three had made sure that anyone who went through Malagosto, anyone who might be promoted, anyone who might be considered for a second in command, anyone who might end up on the _board_ – they had all learned to fear him.

Maybe Yassen was the exception, because Yassen was _Yassen_ , and Yassen had passed through the school before those lessons became part of the curriculum, but Alex wasn't. Nile wasn't, Crux wasn't – none of them were.

Would he have betrayed Yassen if it meant being spared weeks of torture of the sort where Dr Three didn't need to leave him relatively unharmed at the end of it? He liked to think he wouldn't, but did he really know?

How loyal was Nile to Chase if Dr Three gave him that same ultimatum? Or any of the other high-ranking operatives that reported directly to a member of the board?

Something must have shown on his face, because Dr Three's attention turned to him.

"You understand now," the man said and sounded pleased in the way of a schoolteacher with a particularly bright student. "As I'm sure you are aware, I handled your clone's interrogation."

Alex felt his throat tighten, the vice-like grip of fear, of nightmares of Julius Grief and scalpels and himself cut apart, one organ after the other, and didn't speak.

 _The operative has a history of suppression as a semi-successful coping mechanism -_

Semi-successful. Suppression only lasted for so long in the face of what you actually feared, and Alex was reminded of that now. He had managed fine right up until the moment he had been forcibly reminded of Grief under Dr Three's scalpel. Right up until he could no longer ignore it.

"He was a remarkable feat of science," Dr Three continued. He put down his tea with precise motions and reached over the table. A light grip on Alex's chin turned his head from side to side, Alex utterly still and painfully aware of how wide his eyes probably were. Dr Three was not an intimidating figure but the memories and knowledge of what he could do … "Up close, of course, the differences are clear. Time and genetics changed that which was once identical. Some was training, of course. Some was mannerism. Some was simply time. He was quite unstable. His creator was a genius, of course, but hardly the most stable of men, and the events that followed … well. He was unpredictable and impossible to control. MI6 were mad to try. You, Orion, have learned to fear. You are, I think, quite terrified, but you have made no move to escape. Rare discipline in one so young. You will need that discipline to survive."

Dr Three released him. Alex took an unsteady breath, horribly loud in the silent room.

"MI6 kept young Julius in a prison in Gibraltar," Dr Three continued, speaking to Yassen once more. "We knew rumours of the place already but he was quite forthcoming about everything there. He was remarkably observant for one so unhinged. Most of the prisoners there are of little concern to us. One, however … young Julius spoke of a Mrs Rothman. A graceful lady who listened to him and told him about the possibilities available for one of his temperament in the world outside."

The look in Yassen's eyes sharpened. "Her continued survival is confirmed, then. How many know?"

"Among our esteemed colleagues?" Dr Three asked mildly. "None. Young Julius rambled so much. There was little reason to add one more bit of rambling among many to the report. Consider it a gesture of good intentions. She had little care for the value that Orion would have as an operative. She cared only for revenge against a dead man. I will leave the use of such information in your capable hands."

Give and take. A slight, calculated bit of trust here and there; the first, fragile signs of a reliable alliance.

Yassen was under a definite deadline if the board had already begun to look for new members, and Alex understood there and then that he would be a liability. Yassen could move faster alone, invisible in a way that even the cover of a teenage travel companion couldn't make up for. Yassen needed Alex to get close to Kurst; the only one who might be able to. Alex doubted Kurst trusted Dr Three, and he certainly wasn't going to let his guard down around Yassen.

Yassen needed Alex with Dr Three. Needed him to worm his way past Kurst's security and be visible proof of cooperation.

Alex expected the question before it was ever voiced, and Yassen didn't even bother to do that. Just glanced at him.

"Alex?"

Alex looked at Dr Three, small and ageing and harmless-looking, and then pushed the fear aside and nodded slightly.

 _Whatever it takes._

"Yes, sir," he agreed, a little quiet but far more sure than he could have hoped for. "I'll stay."

* * *

A/N: To those curious, the title is taken from the quote _"Every man is the architect of his own fortune."_

Next: Five days of sort-of freedom.


	55. Five Days

Alex Rider got five days of freedom. He didn't know if it was a gesture of goodwill or simply that Dr Three felt reasonably confident Yassen wouldn't be able to target him within such a short time, and he supposed it didn't matter. The doctor had to have some sort of insurance ready, anyway. Something that would destroy their plans if anything should happen to him. And with Yassen underestimating the man to that extent in the first place, Alex doubted he was about to do anything without very careful consideration. It wasn't like it made a difference to Alex at the moment. He would report at Malagosto on the first of January, but the days until then were his to do with as he wished. Well, in theory, anyway.

He spent the first day asleep on the sofa in Yassen's apartment. He got up, had breakfast, and then went right back to oblivion without ever changing out of his sleepwear. He barely managed to briefly claw his way to a vague sense of awareness when Yassen sat down next to him to work on something or another. He was asleep again a moment later but he slept better for it afterwards. Yassen could have settled a number of places to work but he had picked the sofa, and his presence made something in Alex ease a bit. Feel a little safer.

The next time he woke up for long enough to be aware of it, he had managed to claim Yassen's leg as his pillow and Yassen's hand was resting warm and reassuring on his shoulder.

Alex knew he should probably move. He was asleep again before he could actually work up the determination to do something about it.

When he finally woke up proper, it was well into the afternoon. Yassen was no longer on the sofa, but his laptop was still around and Alex heard faint sounds from the kitchen. He was mildly surprised Yassen hadn't woken him up for the daily workout but then, there was still time left in the day.

Ten minutes and a change of clothes later, thirst and hunger led Alex to the kitchen.

There was a bottle of ice water and a large salad waiting for him. It all looked depressingly healthy, even the strips of spicy-looking steak in it. Yassen's idea of takeaway wasn't quite what Alex had hoped for. Based on the amused look he got, Yassen knew it, too.

Alex settled down on the counter, just because he could. Picked up a fork and poked the salad. Definitely healthy. High-calorie, but healthy. Yassen had made sure Alex understood exactly how many calories a teenager in his situation could go through in a day. That had been a surreal lesson. He supposed it made sense to teach him, but it had still been bizarre.

The salad looked awfully green and leafy. The dressing looked healthy. The steak bits looked healthy. The roasted nuts looked healthy. The avocado slices just looked like mocking smiley faces. Alex jabbed one of them. It stuck to the fork. Mockingly.

"... how badly do I have to get beaten up to get pizza instead?"

Yassen still looked faintly amused. "Eat your salad and perhaps I'll consider it."

 _Consider it_. Alex stared at the salad, but common sense and hunger won out. It wasn't that the salad was boring, it just really wasn't what he wanted. Still better than the combat rations they had been stuck with on the reconnaissance missions, though.

Half an hour later, Alex felt a lot better. He didn't ask about the pizza again, being too much of a pest about it just meant the answer would be no, but he still didn't feel entirely comfortable in the silence. He hadn't dreamt, not that he remembered, but the memories from the attack on Rensburg's estate lingered. Things he hadn't noticed at the time but could recall in perfect clarity now. The ruined photos in Rensburg's office. The scorched paper that had been a child's drawing. The faces of the bodyguards he had shot, eyes open but unseeing.

Alex forced himself to focus on Yassen instead. "Workout?"

"Later." Yassen watched him for long seconds. "You will sleep better for the exhaustion, I think."

It was no surprise that Yassen knew. Alex knew he was an open book to the man. He looked down, playing with the last few bits of salad leaf in the bottom of the bowl.

"Alex." His name from Yassen was more a soft exhale than a word. Alex looked back up. "You did what was necessary."

 _Necessary. Right._ "SCORPIA still has the virus stashed away for the next time some deranged nutball decides to play with weapons of mass destruction," Alex said, just a bit bitter. "We killed everyone at that compound. Some of them had nothing to do with it. They just worked there. Cleaned the house. Cooked the food. Handled the grounds. Rensburg had children's drawings in his office. From his son. He had photos of his family, everything that was left of them, and all it took was one grenade to destroy everything. I -"

Alex took a shuddering breath and noticed quite abruptly that his hands were shaking. He put the bowl and fork aside but the tremors remained.

"I liked them. Some of them," Alex said and his voice was shaking. "I – they were nice. They had families. They didn't want people to die, they just worked there to make money and most of them probably didn't even know Rensburg's plan -"

He stopped talking, his throat tightening. Something stung in the corners of his eyes, a wetness that he refused to think of as tears. He looked down and focused on his hands and the comfort of not being alone. He had been alone in Nice. He hadn't thought about it for months, but now the memories came back; the assassination and the horrible, numb loneliness afterwards when he had broken down and had every last emotion wrung from him. At least he had Yassen. For now, at least. In less than a week, he would be on his own again and at the mercy of Dr Three.

"I can't do this," Alex finally managed. "I can't be Orion. If I can't even handle this sort of thing -"

\- What chance did he have with the rest of it, then?

He didn't say it out loud, but he knew Yassen understood the meaning, anyway.

"You did what was necessary," Yassen repeated. One hand reached out to tilt Alex's head upwards again. Yassen's eyes when he met them were – sympathetic. For Yassen, at least.

"Everyone on that estate received the vaccine. Do you believe they did not at least suspect the plan? Do you believe that the client did not make certain he only had guards he could trust not to suffer from a sudden, inconvenient attack of conscience? Do you believe they did not suspect something with our arrival? You are many things, Alex Rider, but you can hardly pass for normal security. Did some remain deliberately ignorant? I have little doubt about that. Were anyone truly innocent? No. Not the staff, not the guards. No one."

A calloused thumb wiped the wetness from under Alex's eyes. "It will become easier in time."

Like assassinations had. Alex didn't want to kill anyone, but it had been much easier to kill Ramos' targets in Miami than Wright had been in Nice. And the prisoner that Yassen had made him execute as punishment … there was no way Alex could have done that half a year prior and he knew it, too.

"What if I don't want it to get easier?"

"Then you will break and you will die," Yassen said, quiet and matter-of-fact. "And SCORPIA will continue as always."

Succeed or die. There was no middle ground. That didn't make things any easier to handle. There was no one he could really talk to, either. Yassen was understanding but ruthlessly practical. Marcus and the rest of Sagitta … Alex doubted any of them had any second thoughts about their job. And talking to a professional was absolutely out of the question when Alex was in the middle of plotting to overthrow the executive board. He couldn't afford to let anything slip and he didn't trust himself not to.

"The virus remains in SCORPIA's hands but there is a general … unwillingness to risk the use of biological weapons in the current political climate," Yassen continued. "The virus will likely remain where it is for some time before a client might find a use for it. Graff's drug has been locked away for much the same reason. SCORPIA has grown more cautious. If waiting will offer a better opportunity to use it and carry less risk to the organisation, it is time well invested."

A balancing act, Alex assumed. Wait too long, and someone could develop an antidote to Graff's drug based on what Daniels had brought back. Use it too soon or too carelessly and it might be the only time they would get any use out of it. They would bring a lot of unwanted attention down on them and their possession of the drug.

Was that the sort of choices he would need to make if he took over one day? If he did, Alex liked to think he would personally see both the virus and any intel on Graff's drug destroyed. That was what he would do now. He didn't have the influence for it now but if they took over … there would be brutal choices to be made sometimes, but there would be advantages, too. The ability to stop this sort of thing in the first place.

"The hyenas?" he asked before he could stop itself.

"Gone by the time clean-up arrived. Presumably all twelve escaped. Neither team found any bodies but human ones in the ruins."

Alex nodded. He felt a little better for that. He knew it would be bad for the locals to have a clan of genetically engineered hyenas around, for human and wildlife both, but he still couldn't help but feel relieved that they had survived. He had liked them, too. Molai had been intimidating, but some part of him had liked even her. He empathised with them. Yes, they were ruthless killers but they had been given even less of a choice than Alex himself had.

"Sagitta?"

Yassen didn't look surprised at the question. "They have been given four days of downtime. I expect them to be well away from the executive board by now."

Smart people. Alex took a steadying breath. "Chase? Rothman?"

"Rothman is a secondary concern for the moment. Chase will be hard to target for now. He has yet to settle again, I believe, and he will be paranoid." Yassen watched him carefully. "Officially, I will work to track down the people behind Duval's kidnapping and interrogation to stop the security leak. As will Chase, drawing on his own contacts. Most of the board will do so, I suspect."

Alex nodded. That left only one target for Yassen now. "Mikato, then?" The only one on the board not accounted for somehow, what with Kurst apparently being Alex's headache.

"Preferably before the intel I have becomes useless when he increases his security as well. It will simply be additional intel for now. To strike again this soon will be risky and might drive Kurst and Chase into hiding. We will need to coordinate the strikes. Gain the intel necessary to target Chase and Mikato and position you close enough to target Kurst."

Alex nodded again and tried to ignore the knot in his stomach at the reminder of their plan. The thought of Rensburg's estate and the people he had just killed had settled as a dull sort of numbness in his mind. The thought of weeks or months on his own with Dr Three, without even Yassen around …

Something must have shown, because Yassen's expression shifted into something that might have been faint sympathy.

"The doctor has … calmed, over the years," Yassen said, a little careful like he was looking for the right word.

"Calmed." Alex's scepticism was plain to hear.

"I went through Malagosto before the good doctor took a personal interest in the training there, but he had a reputation for using those he did not like as research subjects. It could be as little as a wrong remark. These days, he chooses his subjects mostly among the failed students, the undercover agents, and SCORPIA's enemies. It is less personal now."

Right. _Calmed._ Alex was glad he had never met the person Dr Three had been fifteen years ago. The man was bad enough as it was. If that was Yassen's idea of reassurance, someone needed to get him a dictionary.

"He is fond of you, I believe," Yassen continued. "That and your importance to our plan will shield you in a way others would not be. Behave, and you will be fine. Don't try his patience."

How reassuring, talking about the same man that had interrogated and killed Alex's doppelgänger. "And you trust he's on our side?"

Yassen looked considering. "I trust he has had plenty of chances to kill you if he wished to, and I trust that he has good reasons to see the rest of the executive board disposed of. A decade ago, it would have been a trap. These days, I think the good doctor has had a little too much time to consider the lack of retirement from the board. I believe he took his chance when he saw it."

That chance being Yassen and Alex. There was no loyalty on SCORPIA's executive board. Just a bunch of opportunists who didn't hesitate to take out a colleague if the chance arose.

Behave, obey, be a good little SCORPIA pet, then. Be what Nile was to Chase. It wasn't like he had much of a choice, though there and then, even an assassination mission with Yassen sounded like a much better option than Dr Three's company.

Alex trusted Yassen not to do something that would make Dr Three decide their agreement was broken. It still wasn't a nice thought.

Necessity. Whatever it took, that was what he had said and he had meant it. He still did. If this was the only reliable way to get close to Kurst that wouldn't put Yassen or Sagitta in mortal danger in the process, then that was what he would do. Even if it meant being around Dr Three for weeks. Even if it meant being used as a hostage to ensure Yassen's good behaviour.

"All right," Alex said. It wasn't like there was much left to argue about. He was sure Dr Three had taken into account that Yassen might target him. He was sure Yassen knew, too, or he wouldn't have agreed so easily.

Yassen reached out and tucked a lock of Alex's hair back behind his ear. Something about the simple physical contact, slight but human, made the anxiety ease a little in a way that none of Yassen's other reassurances had.

Alex took a slow breath. "All right," he repeated, a little more certain.

He could do this. He didn't have a choice.

* * *

Alex spent his entire second day of freedom at two different private hospitals getting put through every single test in the book. He lost count of the number of blood tests they put him through, followed by blood pressure, injections, more blood tests, scans, and anything else they could think of. Anything short of actual surgery, and it was very clear to Alex that even that was a possibility if they found anything suspicious at all.

The right amount of money would ensure that most of the test results would be available before Alex had to return to Malagosto.

Alex didn't enjoy it in any way but he would be happy to admit he slept better for it. With each test result that came back safe, a slight bit of the stress eased as well. It would give them a baseline for his general condition, too. Alex didn't doubt he would be put through the exact same thing all over the moment he was permanently out of Dr Three's reach again.

His medical file had already started to look like a copy of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare and it would only get thicker. Alex flipped through it but a lot of it was pretty incomprehensible, full of weird abbreviations and words he didn't know. Alex had the horrible suspicion he would one day be expected to actually make sense of all that stuff and not just the basic.

"It is a useful skill to have," Yassen agreed when Alex asked him.

Of course it would be. Sometimes Alex suspected that Yassen thought _everything_ was a useful skill to have. He wasn't about to say that out loud, though.

* * *

The third day of freedom of sorts, Alex slept again and Yassen let him. Weeks of stress and anxiety had finally caught up with him. He had slept the first day as well, but he slept better now. Deep and dreamless, rather than the oblivion of that first day, like even his mind had finally decided that rest came first and everything else could wait. It probably helped he stayed in bed and didn't migrate to the sofa.

Alex woke up a few times, tangled in the sheets and skin pleasantly cool from the air conditioning. Twice he managed to work up the coordination to stumble from the bedroom and to the kitchen for water, and then back again, firmly pretending he didn't see Yassen's amused look.

Then he was out cold again, swept away by welcome sleep.

By the time he finally woke up properly, he felt more at ease than he had in weeks. The numbness was mostly gone and the memories from Rensburg's estate were … muted. They were still there, vivid and unwanted, but he had seen them in enough nightmares already that he had started to grow used to them, slow but steady.

Them, and a hundred other bloody, brutal memories in a jumbled mix of his MI6 missions and SCORPIA assignments. He had not slept well the night before. He hadn't slept well on the flight back to Abu Dhabi, either.

Alex just stayed in bed for a while and stared at the ceiling. The air conditioning was a faint hum in the silence. Any sound of traffic outside and far below had been swallowed by the solid windows. It was afternoon based on the light and a glance at the clock confirmed it. He had slept for … fifteen hours? Eighteen? He didn't even remember when he had gone to bed, but it had been early.

There were a couple of small bruises on his arms from the numerous blood tests and he was starving but otherwise he felt all right.

He could hear nothing beyond the room but that was no surprise. He expected Yassen was there, because if nothing else he would have woken Alex up if he had to leave, but Alex was absolutely sure Yassen had feline ancestry somewhere in his past. That was the only explanation he had as to why the man could move so silently.

Eventually, hunger forced Alex out of bed. He grabbed a random t-shirt and the first clean trousers he saw and slipped into the living room.

Yassen looked up from his laptop but didn't look surprised to see Alex.

Alex stood a little awkwardly in the doorway. Then he crossed over to the sofa and settled down.

"... It's kind of late for breakfast, isn't it?" he asked, a little hopeful.

Yassen's lips twitched in faint amusement. "It's still morning in parts of the world."

"I finished my salad. All of it." There had been healthy food two days in a row now. Alex hadn't bothered to argue, his brain too preoccupied with other things, anyway.

"So you did," Yassen agreed. The amusement didn't waver. He let Alex wait for several long seconds before he nodded. "I suppose I did promise you pizza. I do expect you to take nutritional value into consideration."

No greasy, delicious side orders, then. But still, pizza. Alex was all right with that and scrambled to find a phone before Yassen could change his mind.

Alex ended up eating pizza by his own laptop as he wrote up the detailed – and fake – report on the attack. It should probably have been done the day before, but Yassen hadn't given him any pointed looks about it. He had probably decided that Alex's medical check-up had first priority.

Alex would be the first to admit their dynamics were a little odd. Part of the time Yassen was the strict teacher and mentor, harsher than Ian Rider had ever been but genuinely patient as long as Alex did his best. Part of the time he was Alex's boss and superior and expected Alex to act accordingly. And part of the time, like now, he felt like family more than anything, a sort of father figure or uncle or much older brother who let him sleep when he needed it and made a point of making sure Alex actually got real food to eat.

Maybe that was what Dr Three had seen. Not just Alex's obvious dependence on Yassen, but Yassen's genuine degree of attachment to Alex in return. Yassen never spoke a word about it but there wasn't much else Alex could call it. Some of it could be explained away by being useful for Yassen's own future plans, but some of the things Yassen had done had clearly been for the sole purpose of protecting Alex.

Maybe it wouldn't be enough to actually stay Yassen's hand if Alex ever became a genuine problem, but right now Alex was probably the closest thing to insurance Dr Three could get. The best proof of cooperation.

Sabotage, corruption, intelligence, assassinations. And blackmail, terrorism, interrogation, drug trade, human trafficking, kidnappings, mercenary companies, and a dozen other things that most of the world frowned upon. Compared to that, keeping a fifteen-year-old as insurance of Yassen's good intentions was nothing. Alex, at least, knew what he was involved with. He had agreed of his own free will, or as much as he realistically had under SCORPIA's control.

Jacob Sullivan hadn't. Julius Grief … if Grief had been locked up in a prison that didn't even officially exist, possibly for life knowing Blunt and MI6, he had probably had as much choice in the matter as Alex himself had been given when MI6 first recruited him. Alex remembered Julius Grief and the unhinged expression set in a face that was and wasn't his own and knew there was the very real chance that Grief had agreed just for the chance to get even with Alex, but even if he hadn't … what choice had he been given? Hugo Grief was dead by Alex's own hand. Julius' brothers of sorts were gone and likely killed, too dangerous to be allowed to live.

Alex Rider had Yassen Gregorovich to shield him. Julius Grief had had no one.

SCORPIA didn't care about fairness. They didn't care about their targets. It was never personal, at least not in theory. Dr Three hadn't cared in the least that his victim was a fifteen-year-old boy. A deranged, unstable one taught to kill and with nothing in the way of conscience, but still just fifteen. And these days … was Alex really that different from Julius? MI6 might have tried to get Alex killed but the cold, hard truth was that Alex was a trained killer now. No different from the people that Sayle and Grief and Sarov had surrounded themselves with when it all came down to it.

The last slice of pizza tasted like ash in his mouth and Alex put it back on the plate. Yassen glanced over but didn't ask. Alex appreciated that.

Had Yassen had those same thoughts, watching the recording of Grief's death? Had he been reminded of it when Alex's future had been decided on again? That he was about to leave Alex in the hands of the same man that had spent days taking Julius Grief apart piece by piece and then sent video evidence of it?

Alex pushed the thoughts aside. He could deal with it another time. Nothing he did would make a difference, anyway.

No longer hungry, he returned to the report. It made for grim work but right now it was better than the alternative.

* * *

"You will be armed at all times. Bring your uniform and respectable clothes," Yassen instructed him on the second to last day of the year when the paperwork was finished and January loomed ominous ahead. "You represent me in this matter and you are not one of the students. Bring a change of clothes that will reflect your physical age as well. Something that will allow you to appear the harmless teenager MI6 prized so much."

Alex didn't ask why. It made decent enough sense. He couldn't pull off the young schoolboy looks anymore, but he could do his best to manage harmless fifteen-year-old, and SCORPIA still valued that. And weapons … that went without saying. There was a time Alex wouldn't have been comfortable carrying them. Now, alone and within Dr Three's reach, they would feel like a bit of extra security.

Alex spent most of the day on his own in Abu Dhabi. He didn't have any teenage clothes that really fit right but that was easily solved. Some slightly nicer clothes got added to the pile as well. Alex had spent most of the previous months in uniform or in some degree of disguise. It had been a while since he had to worry about shirts and nice trousers. It would need to be something that could cover a light ballistic vest as well, but Alex was almost used to that by now.

He didn't have any plans for the day. Instead he just drifted about and enjoy the last bit of solitude he would have in quite a while. He normally liked company but it was different when he knew he would be around people for weeks, maybe months, and with very little chance to hole up somewhere for a bit of peace and quiet. Not in Malagosto and with strict instructions to be on his best behaviour around Dr Three.

He had ice cream. Multi-coloured juice with paper umbrellas and fruit bits. Some dish that he wasn't sure what was but which looked pretty good on the menu and tasted just fine, too.

Yassen probably knew but didn't comment when Alex got back. Just gave him an hour to pack and relax a little before he summoned him for training.

Workout helped. There was something about physical exhaustion that got rid of some of that constant stress and anxiety. Alex still got beaten up but he didn't mind. He got a little better every time. Not much but it was still an improvement.

Alex was finishing up his stretches when Yassen spoke, the first words for the past hour that hadn't been instructions or corrections to his close combat abilities.

"I will be expected to travel with security. The lack of such might draw unwanted attention from the rest of the board, and I may need the additional support."

There was only one conclusion Alex could reach; only one option that was already in on their plans.

"Sagitta?" Alex suspected that Yassen would probably consider adding Danube to the plans if needed later, but that wasn't any time soon. For now they already had a perfectly competent combat team aware of what was going on and used to working with both of them.

Yassen nodded slightly. Part of Alex felt a little better for it. It was a risky job, getting the intel they would need, but less so with support. Alex would still be on his own but Yassen would have someone else to watch his back. He knew Yassen had made a career of working alone, but he still felt better knowing that Yassen had backup. And Alex had managed alone at Malagosto before. Sort of. He'd had Nile as his mentor back then, and he had been mostly just another student. Not someone that Dr Three had taken a personal interest in.

Part of Alex felt better for it. Part of Alex also still couldn't help the faint, gnawing sense of loneliness. It wasn't like the team would have been at Malagosto, anyway. It wasn't like Alex wanted them within fifty miles of Dr Three. It was still a lonely thought, Yassen and Sagitta halfway across the world and Alex on his own. He'd had backup in Miami – out of range, but _there._ He wouldn't even have that now.

Alex supposed he would have to get used to it. Yassen had been alone most of his career. Even if Alex ended up taking over SCORPIA one day, if their plan succeeded and they all survived … it was lonely at the top, wasn't it? The risk of assassinations, the constant suspicions about everyone around you … Yassen had trained him to survive on his own for a reason. Alex supposed that now was as good of a time as any to put that to the test.

* * *

Sagitta arrived on the last day of the year, packed and ready to leave. If they were bothered in any way by how the last assignment had ended, it didn't show. They also hadn't been given all the details yet, which became clear when Marcus paused as he realised Alex wouldn't be on the flight out with them come morning.

"You're staying behind?"

"I'm going back to Malagosto for a while for further education," Alex said. "Dr Three has generously offered a temporary apprenticeship."

Alex almost managed to say the last part without grimacing. Marcus' faintly sympathetic look told him he hadn't quite succeeded.

"That sounds like it'll be a fun experience."

Right. Fun. Sagitta would be told the truth eventually, probably once they and Yassen were several countries away. Yassen didn't expect them to react too well to the fact that Alex was going to be a de facto hostage while they were gone, and Alex agreed with that. It was just easier to deal with when they weren't this close to SCORPIA territory. When they were too far away to do anything about it.

Alex spent the day being social and relaxed in a way he hadn't been able to in months. Eventually the sun set. New Year celebrations started. The night exploded in fireworks. The year before, Alex had been so exhausted after his extra courses and keeping up with Malagosto's homework that all he had done was sleep. This year Alex spent the evening on a desert dune with Sagitta, some solid off-road cars modified for sand driving, and a number of fireworks that were closer to real explosives than anything else.

Come morning, the team would be off with Yassen, and Alex would be off to Malagosto and Dr Three.

It wasn't a thought he wanted to linger on, but on that sand dune, in friendly company and with a view of the fireworks in the far-off distance, he could ignore it for at least a little while.

* * *

Next: This was not quite the return to school Alex would have liked.


	56. The Doctor's Apprentice

A/N: As always, thank you for reading, and for your reviews :)

* * *

Alex returned to Malagosto on the first day of the new year, not as a normal student but as a combined apprentice-hostage-undercover agent of sorts under Dr Three's command.

He honestly wasn't sure what to feel about it. Nothing good, he knew that much. A combination of cold dread and lingering fear of the man, mostly, along with a sudden, unsettling sense of loneliness. He genuinely liked Malagosto but the thought of weeks and possibly months with Dr Three was less than reassuring, and he would have no one else there to rely on. Yassen had left already and Sagitta had left with him. Crux would be at Malagosto, Crux and the other instructors he remembered, but they would follow Dr Three's orders above all else.

Alex arrived on his own with a single, large suitcase and with only the driver to keep him company in a car that he had arranged for himself. One of Dr Three's silent assistants met him at the entrance. Alex wondered if they had orders not to talk in public or if being around Dr Three just didn't invite conversation, period.

A small, unwelcome part of him wondered if they could even talk at all. If maybe Dr Three had used them for research as well. He shoved that mental image aside before it could get any worse. It was bad enough to imagine the man carry out his research on someone with Alex's face, even knowing it had been Julius Grief.

They skipped d'Arc's office. Dr Three was the most influential person at the school and for all that Alex really didn't want to go see him, he wanted to make the man wait even less.

Alex spotted a few of the instructors on the way but mostly the place was empty. It was after breakfast and the students would be in class. Everyone else would have other work to do.

Dr Three's building was just as Alex remembered it, deceptively harmless and vaguely ominous with the memories it carried. The doctor himself was working in front of a laptop and a neat pile of papers but got up at their arrival. He glanced at Alex's silent companion.

"Thank you, Matteo."

They had names, then. One of them did, at least. Matteo nodded once and vanished with the suitcase, and Alex was alone with his mentor-superior-jailer for the next several weeks.

"... Sir," he greeted, maybe not as immediate or as respectful as he should, but the best he could manage under the circumstances.

Dr Three watched him for long, uncomfortable seconds. Then he nodded slightly.

"Orion. It would, I think, be appropriate to explain my expectations of you. I expect your respect and complete obedience. You will pay attention, listen, and ask questions as needed as any diligent student would. Yassen trained you to respond to non-verbal commands. I do not expect you to manage to the same degree as with him, as he did keep you to himself for five months before we took over your training, but I expect you to make an attempt. In public, you will obey without question or hesitation. In private, I will permit your curiosity. Yassen allowed it to remain and I am inclined to agree with that choice."

Play the mindless subordinate and obedient operative. Be a good little hunting dog. Alex understood just fine. It wouldn't be easy and he would need to bite his tongue sometimes, he was sure, but if they wanted to be able to get him close enough to Kurst to strike, he also needed to appear absolutely, perfectly loyal. Kurst wanted Hunter's son broken to his will, trained to obey his every command. If Alex got too sassy, if he was too much Alex Rider and not enough Orion …

"Yes, sir."

Dr Three's expression softened slightly. "In return, I will not make you participate in practical lessons that you are not comfortable with. You will be asked to take over several classes as a guest lecturer occasionally as Nile and numerous others have done as well, but I will not require you to teach torture or interrogation. You are here to learn. This school is SCORPIA's true heart, its strength and true advantage against its competitors. Yassen is not the type to have patience for something such as this, but you will need to understand what is required for such a place. Our operatives are an investment, each and every one of them. Mistakes still happen, even with our thorough screening of candidates, but each failed student is an investment we will not get back. We do not fail a student lightly, and what they learn here is intended to ensure they not only survive in their new career but thrive in it as well. Every student that fails to complete their training or is killed soon after graduation is a student that will never pay back the cost of their education."

Of course it wasn't about human lives. Just money. Alex couldn't claim to be surprised.

"Yes, sir," he repeated.

"We have time to teach you, I expect," Dr Three continued. "Yassen has no real desire for power, but he is a survivor above all else. You are, I think, the only person he would trust in charge of SCORPIA upon his retirement. The only one he would trust not to target him the moment he stepped down. It is in his own best interest to see you trained and prepared for the job as thoroughly as possible. It would do little to protect him should you yourself be assassinated soon after his retirement. He is a practical man, our Cossack. Too practical at times."

Too practical. Alex supposed it said a lot about Yassen when a founding member of SCORPIA called him that. He wasn't entirely sure what to say to that, so he stayed quiet.

Dr Three nodded slightly. "Your suitcase has been brought to the school's guest quarters. You are not a traditional student, after all, and I think you will appreciate the additional freedom and quiet."

"Thank you, sir," Alex said and meant it. Small mercies and all that. He remembered being torn from deep sleep for surprise night-time exercises. He did not miss those, however educational they had been.

"There is currently one student undergoing resistance to interrogation. We have three more students who will undergo it over the course of this month as well. You will not be required to participate in that class, either. I know young Crux would be delighted for your company, but the choice is yours. Given your record with such things, I suspect you will prefer to avoid it."

Alex would in fact prefer to be a couple of hundred miles away from that, but he would take what he could get. At least his room was well away from Dr Three's domain. The cells were all soundproof but somehow that just made it all the creepier to remember that there could be someone being tortured right at that moment and he had no way to know. "Yes, sir."

The room fell silent. The seconds stretched on as Dr Three watched him, though Alex didn't know what he was looking for. All he could do was try not to fidget as the silence stretched on.

Finally the doctor nodded slightly again. "Do not consider this a game of politics, Orion. See this as a chance to learn. You will have precious little time to do so if the full weight of SCORPIA comes to rest upon your shoulders. Officially, you are here as additional security for me. Such is the story the staff here has been given, too. Go see our principal. I know he would quite like you to run a few classes before the students become aware of your arrival and are warned of your presence. Dismissed."

Alex didn't let out the soft breath of relief he wanted to but he did feel his tension ease just slightly.

"Yes, sir."

It got him out of Dr Three's domain for now. That was all that mattered.

* * *

Alex remembered the way to d'Arc's office just fine. He didn't run into anyone on the way there but then, lunch was still a good while away. The school looked like it always had to him. Security had increased and there were more guards than usual, but otherwise everything looked normal.

Alex knocked on the door to the office once and slipped soundlessly inside at the acknowledgement from d'Arc.

"Alex!" The man sounded delighted. He looked it, too, every bit as deceptively friendly and harmless as the first time Alex had met him. "It has been far too long. Look at you – Mr Gregorovich's second in command and not even a year out of Malagosto. We all knew you would go far, but you've put our expectations to shame."

Mr Gregorovich, Alex noted, not Yassen or Cossack, because Yassen Gregorovich was a member of the executive board now. One of SCORPIA's most powerful.

"Thank you, sir," he replied. "Dr Three mentioned you wanted me to run a class or two?"

"Malagosto always welcomes skilled guest lecturers," d'Arc agreed. "I would like you to run their afternoon classes for today, before they grow used to your presence. Teach them caution, Alex. Teach them wariness. Teach them fear. Let them understand that everyone could be a potential enemy. Some operatives grow lax around those they believe to be harmless. Sometimes it takes someone harmless-looking to shatter those ideas."

He handed Alex a sheet of paper. Alex recognised it as the weekly schedule. A quick glance revealed the afternoon classes of the day. Shooting range and a two-hour session that had only been marked as _guest lecturer/covert ops_. No wonder d'Arc had been so eager to get him to teach immediately.

"You have an unusual insight into the world of spying, and none of the current students can match your scores on the range. It will be a good lesson, I think."

Beaten by a fifteen-year-old on the shooting range, even one trained by Yassen Gregorovich? Alex thought of the students he had trained with and agreed with d'Arc. If nothing else, it would be a good incentive to do better and a reminder never to underestimate anyone. And covert ops …

Alex's thoughts must have shown because d'Arc nodded. "I think you will be uniquely qualified to spend a few hours teaching them the less common side of covert ops."

The side that used fourteen-year-old children not just as cover but as actual agents thanks to the wonders of blackmail? Alex could definitely tell them about that sort of thing.

"Yes, sir," he agreed.

D'Arc smiled, all friendliness. "Excellent. I'll see you later. It's a delight to have you back for a while, truly. Horrible circumstances, of course, but generous of Mr Gregorovich to agree to let you remain with us for a while. I think it will be educational for our students."

A polite dismissal but a dismissal nonetheless and Alex took his cue to leave with a slight nod in greeting. He couldn't get away with Yassen's indifferent dismissal of most people, but it wouldn't be a surprise to anyone if he had picked up a little from his mentor.

Outside again, Alex considered the situation. He still had three hours until the afternoon classes started. Hopefully enough time to prepare. Alex remembered Nile's guest lectures during his months there. They had been focused on Nile's strengths, the things that made him stand out and made him an example to live up to. D'Arc had clearly planned the same now for Alex.

He wasn't sure how he felt about it. On one hand, there was the slight thrill of it all, the acknowledgement that he was _good_ at his job. On the other hand he would help teach future assassins. But then, he had agreed to that as well when he had accepted Yassen's offer. Malagosto was a living, breathing part of SCORPIA. The organisation could probably survive without it but it would be a big loss. Alex had accepted he would need to make some nasty compromises when he agreed to go along with Yassen's plans. Malagosto's future existence would be one of them.

If they were going to do this, he had no excuse not to do it right. SCORPIA wanted to show him off. Yassen would expect him to go along with that.

Alex spent an hour alone on the shooting range to make sure he was back to Yassen-approved standards. Gordon Ross was elsewhere and the students had class, and while Alex had trained frequently at Rensburg's compound, it was different to be back at a familiar range like this.

He had lunch in his room, considered exactly what to say for the covert ops lesson, and then changed into the outfit he had put together to emphasise his age. Baggy jeans, worn trainers, and a plain t-shirt. The latter was made of ballistic fabric and was a gift from Yassen. One stud earring was back for a little while, and just to complete the image he had added an old backpack he had picked up in Abu Dhabi. The boy in the mirror could have belonged at any secondary school in England. Perfectly harmless. His weapons were all hidden, and nothing on him looked the least out of place.

Alex had shown the getup to Yassen before he packed it away. The man had been pleased with image Alex presented. Just the sort of image that MI6 had prized so much. It made him look his age in a way that the uniform didn't.

He took the time to look up the students' records, too. Just to get an idea of them. D'Arc had been right. Their scores on the range were good, but Alex knew he was better. Yassen had made sure of that.

Alex walked into the classroom exactly on the hour, backpack slung over one shoulder and one hand in his pocket. He had heard the low murmur of voices outside. They fell silent the moment he stepped inside. Malagosto's students quickly learned to respect their instructors.

He didn't recognise any of them from the brief glimpses when he had passed through Malagosto after Santa Catarina. Odds were that anyone there at the time had graduated by now, anyway. He knew none of the current students and none of them knew of Orion beyond his reputation. Most likely none of them could even connect his appearance to Yassen Gregorovich's teenage second in command.

The students were in their early to late twenties, nine students in total – seven male and two female – and all of them were sensible enough to look at him with a bit of wariness. They didn't even need to know him. That a teenager was present at Malagosto spoke volumes on its own.

Alex dropped his backpack on the desk, every bit the insolent teenager, and settled on the edge of the desk himself.

"I'm Alex Rider, Orion to SCORPIA. I am Hunter's son and Mr Gregorovich's second in command, and I'll be your guest lecturer for the afternoon. For those wondering, yes, I am as young as I look. I'm fifteen and graduated Malagosto three weeks after my birthday. I attended the school for three months. Before that I spent five months under Mr Gregorovich's tutelage, and most of my childhood being trained as a spy by my uncle, one of MI6's best agents. I've done operations for SCORPIA, MI6, and the CIA. I'm here to make sure you learn not to underestimate an opponent. By the end of today, you will see anyone as a threat, even a fourteen-year-old schoolboy."

Maybe that would keep them alive longer, too. Knock down the overconfidence that new graduates apparently tended to have according to what Alex had heard. Well, new graduates that hadn't had it made very clear to them that they lived and breathed on the board's whim, anyway.

If nothing else, this was obviously what Yassen wanted or he wouldn't have made Alex pack those clothes, so Alex would go along with it.

None of the students spoke. Alex wouldn't have, either, in their place. The second in command to a member of the executive board was not a person to annoy, whatever their age.

"Shooting range first," Alex said, "and then I'm going to spend a couple of hours explaining the dirtier side of covert ops to you."

* * *

Alex had enjoyed the spontaneous shooting competition with Yassen when they had passed through Malagosto after Miami. Sure, in retrospect it had probably been planned, but Alex had still enjoyed it. Getting to lose himself in nothing but his weapons and the paper targets, and the slight, guilty thrill at how good he was at it. It wasn't a nice skill to have and he definitely didn't put it to good use by any definition of the term, but there was still something about being that skilled at something. Not as good at Yassen, not for years to come, maybe not ever, but _good._

Getting to show off in front of Malagosto's current class with d'Arc and Dr Three's blessings – and probably Yassen's, too – was something else entirely.

Alex's practice rounds had taken care of any bad habits in his routine that might have managed to sneak in. His movements now were smooth and swift, as economical as Yassen's, and he did not hesitate when he raised the gun in a fluid motion and emptied the magazine.

He was not a match for Yassen. Right there and then, he didn't need to be. Just good enough.

* * *

Three hours later, Alex let his class go.

He had been a little surprised at just how _much_ he could talk about covert ops once he got started. He hadn't thought there would have been that much to cover, just the basics of 'MI6 and the CIA are not above using school children as agents', but once he actually got going … he knew a surprising amount. The thorough debriefings Yassen had put him through so long ago in Russia helped, too.

There had been questions, too. No disbelief, no dismissal because of his age, but genuine questions by people who were there to learn. Like Alex remembered from his own time at the school and the guest lecturers they'd had. To the class, Alex's age didn't matter. To them, he was no different from any other teacher.

Part of Alex felt a little bad for the sort of secrets he had shared. The rest of him didn't care. He had seen SCORPIA's file on him. MI6's methods weren't a secret and neither were the CIA's. SCORPIA had known about Alex since Sayle. They had known about the FBI's dead teenage agent, too. And if using children as a cover stopped working, then maybe the people in charge would stop trying to use that trick and actually leave the job to the adults who got trained and paid for it and not to kids who couldn't or didn't know to refuse.

Alex left the classroom at the end of the lesson with something that felt a little like a slight buzz. The thrill of being acknowledged for his skills at something that didn't directly involve killing someone. Indirectly, sure, but right now Alex would take what he could get.

The students vanished in the direction of their rooms. Alex crossed the grounds to the guest quarters to get changed before dinner. Part of his mind was already going over the class, judging their reactions and questions and body language. Matched it with the brief glimpses he had seen of their files and tried to work out their potential. He didn't have much to go on but he still thought he had a decent impression already. Maybe three potentially elite operatives in the group; about the average that Yassen had mentioned, but on the other hand the class as a whole seemed mostly like a solid, competent bunch. Nowhere near someone like Nile, but good, solid, dependable ones nonetheless.

Alex hadn't had time to unpack earlier but he did so now. Not that he had brought all that much with him. The room itself was nice, perfectly anonymous and bland but clearly not cheap. The bed was comfortable, the lock solid, and the windows secure. Yassen would have approved … though maybe not that Alex prioritised a nice bed over safe surroundings. Alex liked to sleep when he could. He was a teenager; Yassen should expect that sort of thing.

Alex had somehow managed to have lunch in his room and return after classes without running into anyone else. When he left to grab some dinner, he found he had company. Familiar company that had been waiting for him, based on the fact that he found her standing by the main door to the building. She looked a little different from last time he had seen her, but familiar enough that he still recognised her.

"Orion. The doctor mentioned you would visit for a while."

Crux sounded genuinely pleased to see him, and Alex found himself smiling in return. Sure, she was Dr Three's apprentice and a likely enemy if things went wrong, but she was also someone familiar in an uneasy situation and just as much of a chess piece in Dr Three's game as Alex was.

"Crux. They wanted a bit of extra security for Dr Three and the school, and I'm kind of conspicuous if Mr Gregorovich wants to go hunting. Maybe having a fifteen-year-old around to show up the students might inspire them to do better, too." That was the story they were sticking to, anyway.

"Some of them could use it," Crux agreed.

They crossed the grounds to the large dining room and Alex took the chance to get a better look at her. He still wondered a little what she actually looked like. Did she bother with a disguise even now? Her hair was slightly longer and darker than before, and her eye colour was different, but if she was that used to disguises, maybe keeping up a cover identity was just part of who she was by now. She did look relaxed, though. Alex supposed that with the sort of security the school had, it was easy to let down your guard a little. It was a lot less dangerous than actual assignments. Not safe, but … less dangerous.

Alex had expected the looks he got when they stepped inside the dining room, and he ignored them like he had after the week with Yassen in the villa. Back then he had been an unknown. Now the students knew who he was and what he could do.

Crux led him over to one of the staff tables and the sole figure seated at it. Alex wasn't all that surprised to see that Dr Three had decided to dine with the rest of the staff and students at the school for once. Politics. Power games. Alex settled easily at the table and didn't let any of his tension show. He knew the image it would give, the image that Dr Three wanted. Orion wasn't just there as a guest lecturer and additional security; he was there specifically under Dr Three's command.

"Sir," he greeted.

The doctor smiled. "Orion. I hear your classes went well."

Alex shrugged a little. "They're good students. Mr Gregorovich didn't tolerate anything but the best from me when he taught me how to shoot, and a lesson on MI6's methods might help them stay alive."

Dr Three nodded. "Overconfidence is common in recently graduated operatives. Even among those with prior experience in the field. Training will do that sometimes. You never showed the same but you were always an unusual student. Yassen did an exceptional job."

There wasn't much Alex could say to that, though watching from an outside point of view, he had to agree. For better or for worse, Yassen Gregorovich had managed to take a fourteen-year-old kid raised with morals and solid ideas of right and wrong and turn him into a killer. Maybe he hadn't done a _good_ job, but he had certainly done an exceptional one. "Thank you, sir," he settled on.

Dr Three smiled. "Do eat. You're still a growing boy."

Alex took that as permission to focus on his food and did just that. Crux didn't speak much, though she did give him a fond smile that made him suspect she probably knew he didn't feel all that social or comfortable that close to her new boss. Crux and Dr Three did exchange a few, quiet words about what Alex assumed was the student going through resistance to interrogation, and he promptly did his best to block it out.

Two of Dr Three's assistants were in the room as well, Alex noticed at a quick glance. One was missing, probably watching said student.

Had they done the same for him? Alex only remembered Dr Three and Yassen. Then again, he also didn't remember the two days he had spent drugged out of his head while SCORPIA tried to make sure he wasn't a threat to them. Maybe those assistants had watched him while he was out of it. Maybe Alex had just been a special case. Either way the thought was creepy.

Alex stayed focused on his food and retired to his room – fled, rather – the moment Dr Three let him.

The bed smelled like freshly washed bed linen. The mini fridge held an assortment of drinks and snacks. He had his laptop and a TV. The nice-looking desk and office chair were both clearly meant to be used and not just there for decoration. It felt like an expensive hotel room more than anything. Alex's room as a student hadn't felt like home, but it had still felt comfortable at the end of his stay. Familiar.

This was … both familiar and new at the same time. The surroundings were nice. It was still a prison of sorts, and Alex couldn't quite forget that. He was there of his own, free will. Yassen had asked and not just ordered.

How much choice he had actually had when it came down to it … that was another of those thoughts Alex didn't want to linger on.

Alex sent off a quick mail to Yassen, just a few words to let him know everything was fine so far. Then he headed to the bathroom.

Alex Rider was in bed by nine, mentally and physically exhausted. At least he didn't dream.

* * *

Next: Back to school.


	57. From the Other Side

Alex was up early the following morning to do his usual training routine and join the students on their run. It was always a little boring to run alone and he would really rather avoid it. The rest of the exercises he did on his own, the training a combination of what Yassen had taught him and the recommendations from Crux.

He did find himself cornered by Professor Yermalov afterwards, though. He had been aware that the man had watched most of his workout but had forced himself to ignore it, used to the occasional looks when he trained with Sagitta. It was just a little more unnerving when it was someone like Yermalov doing the watching. It felt like a test.

"Gregorovich?" the man asked in his usual half-demanding tone, and Alex wasn't that surprised to hear a distinct lack of the same respect he had grown used to hearing from most people regarding Yassen after the man's promotion. If anyone could get away with it, it was Yermalov.

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed. "With a bit of input from Crux. Stuff to help keep my age an asset longer."

Yermalov nodded. "Agility and flexibility." Hard eyes watched Alex. "You will see me an hour every day starting tomorrow. Arrange for it."

Alex swallowed. Oh, _joy._ "Yes, sir."

He wasn't about to refuse. It would be educational, he was sure. Yassen would consider it a great opportunity for him. It would also hurt. A lot.

* * *

Alex reported in Dr Three's office after his workout, showered and in nice, respectable clothes.

"Orion," the man greeted him. "I trust you slept well."

Like the dead. Alex supposed it was a bit of an inappropriate comparison, everything considered, but it was true. He had been too worn out to dream. "Yes, sir." He hesitated. Decided to just flat-out ask. The man had said that Alex was there to learn, after all. "Professor Yermalov would like to see me for an hour every day."

Dr Three nodded slightly. "Granted. He was always a little disappointed he did not get more time to instruct you in. Children learn better in some ways than adults ever could."

"Thank you, sir." On one hand, he would probably be in a world of pain. On the other, it might save his life one day, and every hour with Yermalov was an hour not spent with Dr Three. The doctor could afford to be gracious. It wasn't like Alex could leave.

"It may be useful to draw up a schedule for you. It would be a shame to waste your time here. We'll see what classes you could do with additional tutoring in. It's always a pleasure to see students eager to learn."

If it got Alex out of Dr Three's domain, he would count himself eager to learn just about anything short of Crux's classes. Physics? Sure. Accounting? Sign him up. How many new languages? Could come in handy, better add a few more just in case.

"Report after breakfast," Dr Three continued with a glance. "Dismissed."

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed, grateful for the reprieve. At least his stomach waited until he was back outside again before it added its agreement.

* * *

Breakfast was both odd and familiar at the same time. Much the same as during his time as a student, of course, except this time he was at the staff tables, listening to Gordon Ross' animated description of the most recent night-time exercise.

"We'll borrow you next time as well, of course," the man assured him. "We can always use another sniper to keep them on their toes."

A sniper paintball rifle and permission to just … have fun? Sure, Alex knew what the students were being trained for, what those exercises would one day be used for, but he still felt a small, treacherous spark of excitement. It would be fun to be on the other side of one of those exercises for once. Not hauled out of bed in the dead of the night, but one of the ones doing the hauling in the first place.

Alex didn't talk much but he let himself be swept away by the conversation, happy to be on sort of familiar ground again. The students still glanced at him occasionally, but less now that he had trained with them. They'd had plenty of time to get a better look at him. There was still the wariness of someone known to be Yassen Gregorovich's second in command and personally trained apprentice, but … less than it had been. Alex doubted it would ever entirely vanish. People had been respectful of Nile, too.

He would be lonely, he realised in a moment of cold clarity. He wasn't sure if it had been the same for Nile or if he hadn't cared at all, but Alex knew he would be lonely. He wasn't one of the students, he wasn't part of the staff, and he had to keep up appearances. He had liked his classmates those three months the first time around. This time would be very different.

Alex was greeted by numerous small stacks of paper after breakfast when he reported again to Dr Three as ordered. A closer look revealed that the whole lot of them seemed to be tests. Quizzes on weapons in Russian, medical exams in German, bomb schematics in French, politics in Spanish, grammar in Arabic. The restless energy that always followed from being in an unknown situation had settled a little after the morning workout. It looked like that would come in handy now.

Dr Three noticed his glance at the papers and answered the unvoiced question. "I would like to see how much you remember from your lessons."

Definitely tests, then. It was a lot of them, too. "Yes, sir," Alex agreed and managed not to sigh. "How long do I have?"

"Until dinner. I do expect you to take time for lunch and to be social. Make a good impression. You do represent myself and Yassen both."

Like Nile had done, too. Maybe Nile was a social person by nature, maybe he wasn't, but at the very least he had faked it really convincingly for the months he had spent at the school. Sure, the main purpose on paper had been to give the man time to recover properly, but Alex knew ulterior motives when he saw them these days. It was awfully convenient that Nile had been there to take over the moment Yassen had to leave, and having such a successful operative around would just give the students a good example to look up to.

Alex didn't object. Just settled down with a pen and started. It was better than some alternatives he could think of.

Some of it came easy to him. Some of it was more a bother to write down than anything, close to instinctual knowledge by now. Some of it was a lot harder. It didn't help that some of it was material that Alex was absolutely sure his classes hadn't covered. Some of the medical questions he knew only because of Mace's lessons. Some of the bomb schematics were completely unfamiliar to him. And he really wasn't anywhere near decent enough in Arabic, with as few chances as he'd had to actually practice it. Did Dr Three expect him to know all of it? Would there be a punishment for failing? Or were the tests deliberately set up so he couldn't possibly answer everything in them with the training he had? Alex didn't know, and he wasn't about to ask.

At least he had no problem taking a break for lunch. He was starving, his hand had started to cramp, and his shoulders made a couple of loud cracks when he stretched. It was only then that Alex realised that he hadn't really moved for hours. The stacks of untouched paper were smaller, at least. There were still a lot of sheets left but … he was getting somewhere.

"You've been busy," Jet told him at lunch, a genuine smile on her lips. "We've barely seen you at all."

Alex shrugged and felt his shoulders crack a little again. It felt surprisingly good. "Dr Three wants to see just how much I remember from training. Professor Yermalov decided to call dibs on me for an hour a day, too."

Jet looked sympathetic. Alex didn't doubt she was a skilled fighter in her own right, she was one of Malagosto's former students, after all, and while he didn't know if she had trained under Yermalov, she at least knew him well enough to know that Alex was in for a rough time. An hour of Yermalov's undivided attention was not a kind thing.

"Come by the greenhouse if you need a break. I can always use a hand, and you were an attentive student."

Alex didn't point out that he had been an attentive student because Yassen had allowed for nothing else and had made sure Alex knew at least the theory behind the assassin version of botanical lessons. Alex didn't like what the plants would be used for but he would admit that the greenhouse was beautiful. Lethal, but beautiful. A bit of bright colour in the middle of everything else.

Once he knew what Dr Three expected from him and what he could get away with, he would probably take Jet up on her offer, too. If nothing else, then to get a bit of a break.

Dr Three began to look through some of Alex's answers that afternoon while Alex still worked on the rest of them. For a long time, the only sounds in the room were Alex's scribbles and the careful, precise way that Dr Three picked up another sheet of paper. The man looked even more the part of a retired school teacher now than he normally did.

Several completed tests later, Dr Three broke the silence. "Someone gave you additional medical training."

Alex glanced up and saw one of the anatomy diagrams in the man's hand.

"One of the medics on my primary combat team, sir," he responded. "It was a way to pass the time on surveillance duty and he thought it might come in handy."

Though maybe not come in handy in quite that way. Alex would take what he could get.

"And your Arabic?"

Alex didn't wince. "I haven't had much time to practice, sir."

Dr Three didn't look surprised. "Arrange for tutoring at least twice a week. I expect you to work on it while you remain here. It will be a useful language."

"Yes, sir." It was better than the disapproval and possible punishment that Alex had expected. But then, there was only so much he could have learned during his three months at the school. Most of the time he had spent with Yassen had been used to bring his Russian up to fluent and handle what Yassen considered basic training for a future assassin. And afterwards … SCORPIA had kept him busy. His age was an asset. Additional training could come later.

Dr Three nodded slowly. "Your maths grades in school were excellent. I trust Yassen has kept you working on that."

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed. "He's given me homework when we've had time for it."

It had been a nice distraction at the time, a bit of normality in the middle of everything, but now he was downright grateful for it.

Dr Three nodded again. "I expected as much. D'Arc is an excellent principal and knows the state of this school at any given time, but he prefers to leave the more detailed numbers to those more skilled in such. You will spend time going over the records and statistics for our students. We have always kept thorough records, of course. That is the only way to improve the school. For one, Malagosto will have up to fifteen students at any one time, but experience has taught us that around ten students will give the best results. There are exceptions, certainly, but between eight and twelve students will give the right balance between others to learn from and compete with and still few enough students that the instructors have enough time to focus on all of them. Perhaps a day or two with the personnel department will be educational as well."

Suddenly accounting classes seemed like less of a joke than they had before. More work, then. Still better than a lot of the alternatives Alex could think of.

"Yes, sir."

Dr Three turned his focus to Alex's test answers again. Alex waited for a few seconds but no more questions appeared. Then he bit back a sigh and grabbed another sheet of paper from the slowly dwindling stacks.

* * *

Alex got used to his new routine soon enough. That was how he had been raised. He adapted, even to this.

Yassen stayed in touch. Not daily and not for long but when possible. Long enough to get an update on Alex's condition and for Alex to know that Yassen and Sagitta were all right, too. They couldn't risk anything incriminating, not even on a secure connection, but it was enough to keep Alex's mood up. He didn't even know for sure where they were, but it was probably safer that way, anyway. What Alex didn't know, Dr Three couldn't wring from him if it came to that.

Alex hadn't had a chance to know everything in the many tests Dr Three had given him, but he had done … all right, he supposed. The doctor had wanted an idea of Alex's level of education and he had done his best. Alex did have the horrible suspicion that there would be additional lessons sometime in his future.

The last test results from the two private hospitals arrived four days after Alex returned to Malagosto. Beyond a few, minor things, Alex was fine. Physically in great condition and with no sign of anything wrong.

It was a relief, though Alex wasn't really surprised. At least for now, he was more valuable to Dr Three alive and unharmed.

Yassen had probably already seen the results, but Alex forwarded them, anyway, just in case.

Alex had arranged for tutoring in Arabic from Malagosto's language instructor four days a week, well on the safe side of Dr Three's requirements. That and the homework that came with it also gave Alex a bit of a break of sorts, for all that it was still hard work. The daily hour with Yermalov was like training with Yassen in a bad mood, but it was also educational. Alex didn't enjoy it, but he would be the first to admit that an hour of one-on-one tutoring with the professor taught him a lot. It also didn't let him think of anything else, solely focused on his training unless he wanted to bring a painful, immediate punishment down on his head, so that was a break of sorts, too. Just a very miserable one.

He stopped by the greenhouse several times. It was even more lush and green than he remembered. He had gone through Malagosto right after the school had moved from Venice. Another year had done wonders for the plants in Jet's domain. Taking care of those plants was a bit of a careful job, most of them lethal and the rest bad enough for the most part to make you wish you were dead, but part of Alex did enjoy it. He didn't have to be social or really think all that much. Just work slowly and carefully like he had been taught. And some of the plants were really very beautiful.

Even then, Alex spent most of his time in Dr Three's office, making his way through the homework that was already piling up. It had started with Arabic homework from his tutor but had quickly been joined by world politics and history. The most recent addition had been one of the more harmless medical texts from the doctor's collection. Dr Three seemed to prefer to keep him within sight for the most part, but at least he was nice enough to dismiss Alex before he started to discuss the more gruesome sides of his research with Crux or his assistants.

Crux dropped by frequently. Alex knew that part of it was because of the two students that had just started on resistance to interrogation – Jordan, who had just passed the course, was now in Dr Javadi's care – but he did his best to ignore that part of it. She wasn't a good person, but she was familiar company in an unfamiliar situation, and that helped a little. She did keep him company when she had the time. Sometimes they just talked over tea and coffee in the main room beyond the office. Sometimes she worked while Alex went through whatever homework he had been given. Once he saw her correct homework of her own, no different from any other teacher. He suspected that sometimes she dropped by just to give him a bit of company, and he honestly appreciated it. If she knew why Alex was actually there, though, she gave no indication of it.

Staying at Malagosto like Nile had done also gave Alex an unusual view of the dynamics of the place. He wasn't a teacher but he wasn't really a student, either. Not in the traditional sense, at least. He still did his morning run with the class for company, like Nile had done sometimes, too, but they had easily agreed to just call him Orion after the first time he told them not to call him 'sir'. Nile had gone by his name as well.

Between his codename and the slightly unnerving, respectful address, he preferred Orion. It was weird enough to have Marcus and the rest of Sagitta do it. There were a lot of unpleasant memories tangled up in the name, but he had learned to live with it and Dr Three favoured it as well. To SCORPIA, the name was just as much of a rank as a convenient designation. He had gone through Malagosto to get it, which said everything SCORPIA's people really needed to know.

He had become a regular guest at Gordon Ross' lessons at the shooting range, too. The man felt that Alex's presence would help inspire the students to do better, and Alex enjoyed the practice. He wasn't the only one who had learned to shoot at a young age, Alex discovered – one of the students had learned to hunt at the age of twelve – but he was the only one of them trained by an assassin from the moment he first picked up a gun. The difference wasn't immediately obvious but became clearer the more he trained with them. Yassen had immediately hammered out any bad habits Alex had tried to develop. Not all of the current class had been quite that lucky.

"What is your impression of our students?" Dr Three asked him one afternoon about a week after Alex's arrival.

Alex had been on his best behaviour. In return, Dr Three had allowed him to stay well away from torture and interrogation lessons. Alex was still wary of him but despite his best efforts, he could feel his tension around the man ease a little. Dr Three was dangerous and Alex knew it, but it was hard to stay on high alert all the time, and at least for now the man seemed willing to play nice. Alex would take advantage of that while he could.

Alex hesitated. "They seem pretty good, sir. I think there are three or so really good ones in the batch. None of them are anywhere near Mr Gregorovich when it comes to shooting, but I don't think anyone is."

Dr Three nodded. "Several of them show good potential, should they survive their first year. Mere talent is not enough, unfortunately. Nile was the second-best in his class, as Julia was fond of reminding him."

Second-best. Alex thought of Nile and what he could do and decided there and then that he didn't want to meet the best in Nile's class. He was a bit surprised that a member of the board hadn't gone for the best operative they could, but who knew what sort of politics had gone on behind the scenes. Maybe they had plans for that other student.

"So where's the best one?" Alex asked, driven by morbid curiosity.

"Dead." Dr Three's unreadable eyes met Alex's. "He died under curious circumstances shortly after Nile's promotion."

Right. Alex didn't ask if Nile or Rothman had done it. Nile to finally prove himself better, or Rothman to ensure Nile would always be second-best in some regard. He didn't want to know.

There was a message in there somewhere. SCORPIA liked mind-games, and the executive board more than most. Skills were valuable, but the right connections could save your life. Maybe it was meant as a lesson, maybe as a warning. Knowing the man, it was probably both. A reminder that violence alone would not let them keep control of SCORPIA.

"... Yes, sir." There wasn't really much else Alex could say to that.

He was reminded of those stories that always came with some ridiculous moral at the end. SCORPIA's versions obviously weren't much better.

Alex returned to his homework. Dr Three let him.

* * *

 _Things are progressing ahead of schedule,_ Yassen wrote, suitably vague about things. Alex translated that as Yassen and Sagitta having made good headway on intel on Mikato. Yassen didn't have the intel to target him even before Duval's death, and now, after the attack on Chase, whatever Yassen did have was likely to be outdated. _Status?_

 _My Arabic is improving,_ Alex wrote back. _I think Professor Yermalov is a sadist. Dr Three is – nicer than I thought he would be._

Nicer, more lenient, less of a brute-force sort of person than Kurst. There was a lot Alex could have said but he suspected Yassen would understand.

 _No one learns by being coddled._ No surprise there, that seemed to be Yassen's philosophy when it came to Alex's education. _I am pleased to hear that._

Translation, Yassen still worried and part of Alex felt warm and fuzzy about that.

 _Remember your instructions,_ Yassen added.

Behave. Obey. Be a good little SCORPIA pet. Yassen knew his feelings about that sort of instruction. Alex didn't need to spell it out.

 _Yes, sir._

It was a short conversation, but Alex felt better for it.

* * *

Two days later found Alex with a dictionary in Dr Three's office, slowly making his way through an assignment in Arabic. Like Yassen, Malagosto's instructors did not believe in coddling their students, and that included the language tutors. Alex only had Arabic lessons every other day but his homework easily took eight hours or more to complete between each lesson.

Bored students were students with enough time to do stupid things. SCORPIA certainly did their part to make sure that wouldn't be an issue.

The first sign that something was wrong – the only sign Alex needed – was Crux's expression when she entered the office and crossed the room to Dr Three with a slight frown. Her words when she spoke were too low for Alex to hear but Dr Three nodded slowly.

"Regretful but unavoidable," he said. "I will be there soon."

Crux nodded and left the room without even a nod to Alex. The second sign that something was wrong.

Alex watched her progress out the door. When he glanced back, he found Dr Three watching him. Calm. Considering. Like being watched by a bird of prey. Alex knew he didn't want to ask, didn't want to know, and kept his mouth shut. It wouldn't do any good, but at least he had learned occasionally to not ask for trouble.

"One of our students has failed resistance to interrogation," Dr Three finally said when it became clear Alex did not plan to speak. "Regretful, of course, but a certain percentage will always fail despite our best efforts to choose our students well. You never truly know how someone will react if they have not been exposed to such training before."

 _Failed._ Alex knew the consequences of that. He didn't know the current students well at all, but he did know that one of them would not be seen again. One more student that would vanish without a trace.

Somewhere in the building in the soundproofed cells, SCORPIA had just written off one more life. Alex wondered if the man in question even knew. He might not. Not yet, anyway. If Alex himself had said something he shouldn't by the end of his RTI course, he wasn't sure he would have known, either, too out of it to rely on anything but the most basic of brain functions and the stubborn refusal to give up a single thing.

Something must have given away his thoughts, because Dr Three's expression shifted into what Alex had long since come to think of as the man's teacher-face.

"I am well aware that you disapprove of such methods, but you must learn to understand the necessity of them, too. You have grown fond of your combat team. Attached. Perhaps not what your mentor would approve of, but despite your similar training here you are both very different individuals. Imagine, then, that this student had not broken in training but in enemy hands. That we permitted him to live, to graduate. Imagine that he had been the operative in charge of your team for an assignment. If he could not pass resistance to interrogation here, knowing that failure would be a death sentence, how could you trust him not to break in enemy hands? Not to willingly share all he knew to spare himself? Not to see your team hunted down and killed for one operative's inherent weakness? You were fourteen when you went through the course, but I treated you no different from any other student. SCORPIA needed to know you were strong enough. If a child can withstand such a test, if the vast majority of our students can withstand it, is it not a failure in the few who cannot rather than the course itself?"

He made it sound so reasonable. A part of Alex agreed with the man and he hated himself for it.

If someone broke even knowing it was their life on the line, they wouldn't have hesitated to give up someone else to save themselves if they ever ended up in enemy hands. It was a lot easier to disagree with Dr Three's methods until the man brought up Sagitta. They were his now but that didn't rule out the possibility that they might work with other operatives in the future. If Alex couldn't trust those operatives, there was no way he was leaving his team in their hands. Ever.

Alex didn't answer. He obviously didn't need to, because Dr Three nodded.

"You understand, then. He will be disposed of in time, but even then it will not be a complete loss. Perhaps we will be able to gain an understanding of what character flaw that enabled such weakness and be aware of it in future potential students."

 _Disposed of in time._ Alex knew just what that meant and very resolutely did not think about it. Dr Three had apparently stopped using failed students for practical demonstrations some years back, but he still used them as research subjects, whoever that student had been. Alex didn't want to ask but knew he would find out soon enough, anyway.

"... Who was it?"

"Peralta. Calzaroni has done well so far. I would be quite surprised if he fails. Peralta is young Crux's first student to fail the course. No good teacher, I think, can claim to be entirely free of doubt that they did not do their job well enough when such a thing happens."

Peralta. Twenty-seven, Spanish, good scores on the range, recruited from one of SCORPIA's mercenary companies. Dark hair and a tan and a determined expression, Alex's mind filled in. He wasn't sure why he had even asked. He regretted it already.

He wondered if Dr Three was right. If Crux cared at all that her student had failed. SCORPIA wanted all of their students to pass the course, anything else was a wasted investment, but they also expected those occasional failures. Those failures were part of the calculations, just like the percentage that failed graduation or didn't survive to pay of their full debt was.

"Resistance to interrogation is not about breaking our students," Dr Three said almost kindly. "It is about training such skill in a safe, controlled environment and to give our students an understanding of their own limitations and the incentive to avoid capture at all costs. Anyone can be broken, Orion. I think we are both aware I would need very little time to do so with you, were it truly my goal. You understand your own strengths and weaknesses better for it, and you understand what could have been done to you instead."

Alex swallowed down the sudden taste of bile. His pulse was racing just at the reminder. Yes, he knew exactly what could have been done to him by someone who didn't need him unharmed at the end of it, and he would go a long way to avoid it. He would take death before going back into Blunt's hands.

He did not appreciate the reminder but part of him understood the logic behind now. Why SCORPIA's operatives were so rarely captured alive.

Dr Three was probably the most dangerous person on the executive board, Alex understood in that moment as well. Not just because of his influence or research or other disturbing hobbies, but because he understood the people around him so very well. He knew Alex's weaknesses and objections, and he had obviously decided to do something about them. Calm and reasonable, one insidious argument after the other until Alex agreed, and he knew just how to make Alex listen.

Dr Three got up. "Now, I have a student to see to," he continued. "I expect you to have finished your assignment in time for dinner."

The conversation might be over for now, but Alex knew better than to expect it to be done for good. Dr Three had laid the foundations. Now he would give it time to settle in Alex's mind.

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed quietly.

Dr Three looked pleased. He left the room and closed the door behind him, leaving only silence in his wake.

Alex stared at the paper in front of him for a long time without really seeing it before he finally picked up his pencil again.

* * *

A/N: If there are more typos than usual, it's because the author caught a cold. The chapter was finished well in advance, but editing took a few more braincells than I currently have available, so a few things might've slipped through.

Night Riders: For now, it's enough for Dr Three that Alex knows he could have done it but has simply chosen not to for the time being.

Next: Not all of Dr Three's lessons deal with torture and interrogation. It's still not much of an improvement in Alex's opinion.


	58. Lessons

Life at Malagosto carried on like the student who had failed RTI had never even existed. Alex had known it would happen but it was something else to see it in person.

Peralta's room was cleared overnight, and his name never once mentioned again that Alex heard outside of Dr Three's domain. The students didn't ask and the instructors didn't tell. Everyone understood that unspoken rule just fine.

For all that Alex had good memories of his own three months at Malagosto – for the most part, anyway – it was a harsh reminder that there was no such thing as sentimentality or personal ties at the school. Alex got along well with his classmates during his short stay but he didn't doubt that if he had failed RTI himself, they wouldn't have given him a second thought.

It was … unnerving. Peralta had known what he was getting into, the students all knew before they ever arrived, but it still sent a chill down Alex's back.

Then he imagined Sagitta under the command of someone like that, someone who would probably have betrayed them without a moment of hesitation, and understanding settled dark and heavy again.

SCORPIA needed to make sure their students knew what they might face in the real world. They had to know their operatives would be trustworthy. If those students weren't up to standards … they knew too much about Malagosto and SCORPIA to let them go again, and Alex knew it, too. That was always one of the terms of the school. You graduated, or you died. There was no other way out.

And Alex had survived. There had been days when he had wondered if it had been worth it, but he had survived. If he could do that at fifteen, at _fourteen_ … sure, he had five months under Yassen Gregorovich's personal tutelage, too, but that didn't change the fact that he had been held to adult standards at fifteen. The adult students would stand a far better chance at graduating than Alex ever did.

Alex didn't know where Peralta was now – if he were even still alive – and he didn't want to know. Dr Three let Alex stay out of it, and right now that was all he cared about.

Two new students arrived, the slow, steady flow of potential operatives to keep up with SCORPIA's demands. Alex had seen the records. About two or three new students every month on average, though Alex's time there had been a little unusual since it had been such a short while since the school moved from Venice. Training had been extended for a few months to make up for lost time.

Malagosto saw around thirty students pass through the school every year. Of those, SCORPIA expected around twenty-five to graduate. Every sixth student wouldn't survive the training, Alex realised, staring at the numbers. They would fall short of standards, fail resistance to interrogation like Peralta had done, or they would die during their graduation assignment.

There had been ten students for most of Alex's time at the school, ten including Alex himself. Based on those statistics, one or two wouldn't have survived. He had already known from Yassen that three of them probably wouldn't survive a full year. Even Alex had still to finish his first year. It was different to know that one of them might have failed RTI like Peralta had. That they might not even have lived to graduate. They had all seemed skilled to Alex, but then, he hadn't known what to look for back then. He had a better idea now. He could look up the records but he didn't want to. Seeing the names in print, people he _knew_ , would make it uncomfortably real.

Alex did the same thing he had on the _License to Chill._ He ignored the thought and focused on something else.

Gordon Ross gave the new students less than two days to get settled before he made good on his threat and arranged another surprise night-time exercise.

It was odd to be on the other side of things. This time Alex knew the plan and wasn't just dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, groggy and confused.

He had napped in the evening to get at least a bit of rest and shortly after midnight found him on the flat roof of the main building with a paintball sniper rifle and a perfect view of the student dorms. There was no wind and the temperature was pleasantly cool. There were lights in the distance but for the most part it was darkness, broken only by the lights of the school itself. It was quiet. Still. Alex could have stayed there for hours.

Alex watched Ross' figure vanish into the student building along with Professor Yermalov. Twenty seconds later, the first lights in the rooms came on.

Alex was glad it wasn't him.

A couple of minutes to gather the lot of them, brief them on the objective of the exercise, then send them off …

Five minutes, Alex estimated, and his first targets would show. With a little luck, he would manage to hit several of them before they could react.

Alex knew he shouldn't find the whole thing as thrilling as he did. It was a game for now but in a few months it would be deadly serious for the students in that building. Alex knew what they would use the knowledge for. Malagosto trained assassins, not soldiers. Even then, Alex still felt that treacherous spark of adrenaline as he settled down and waited.

If he had it his way, there would be a lot of bruised, sore students come morning.

* * *

Alex met Dr Three's second in command around two weeks into his sort-of-voluntary stay at Malagosto. He hadn't given much thought to the idea that the doctor had a second in command at all. He knew it on some level, and the man had been mentioned briefly in Yassen's files, he just … hadn't thought about it.

Dwale was in his forties, with well-groomed grey hair, and he could have been from any of a dozen countries in western Europe. His English sounded faintly like it wasn't his first language but Alex couldn't pinpoint anything else. When he spoke to the doctor, it was in what Alex assumed to be Mandarin, which Crux spoke as well.

Thinking back, Alex vaguely remembered a glimpse or two of the man when he had first studied at Malagosto but nothing more than that. Whatever the doctor used his second in command for, the man wasn't around much.

"I spend most of my time elsewhere as the doctor's representative," Dwale explained in his soft-spoken English. "He does not travel so much as he used to, and there are a number of tasks I can handle well enough on my own. Those things we are approached about do require skill and finesse but most are not worth the doctor's time. He ensured I was trained to his standards and could represent SCORPIA in such matters."

Alex supposed that made sense if Dr Three wanted to focus on his research. He wasn't young anymore. Alex could imagine that even travelling in the comfort of first class or by business jet would get tiring eventually.

Dr Three could spend his time on executive board business and his hobbies. Dwale handled the less interesting things in his place.

Dwale stayed at Malagosto for three days. Alex spent those days well away from Dr Three's office. The main room of the doctor's building had a sofa and a table; everything that Alex needed. If hiding in his own room wasn't an option, that would have to do. What little Alex did manage to unfortunately listen in on was a combination of business and what was apparently the early drafts to the doctor's next publication. Neither was something Alex wanted anything to do with.

Crux showed up occasionally to talk business as well, but for the most part it was just Dr Three and his second in command.

Alex focused on his assignments and firmly ignored both of them. World politics became the most fascinating thing in the world when the alternative was Dr Three's research. Alex knew he would be expected to read the publication, whatever it was about, when it was done. Dr Three's two-thousand page monstrosity of a book was still on Alex's to-read list as well. Sooner or later, he would run out of excuses as to why he hadn't started on it yet. Malagosto's textbook on the matter had been bad enough. Alex was in no rush to find out just how much more detailed the doctor could get when he wasn't restricted by a mere few hundred pages.

Dwale left the evening of the third day, off to see to SCORPIA's business elsewhere. Alex had just finished packing up his things for the day and was about to consider dinner when Dr Three reappeared.

"Orion," he greeted in the way that Alex had learned meant he had something to say.

Thoughts of dinner evaporating, Alex sat back down. "Sir."

The seconds ticked on. The simplest of methods were sometimes the most effective, too, but Alex stubbornly remained silent. The silence wasn't comfortable but he had started to learn to tolerate it. That seemed to be the doctor's most recent pet project. Teaching Alex not to talk just to fill out the silence.

"I am pleasantly surprised you did not spend the past few days in your room," the man eventually said.

Alex shrugged a little awkwardly. He had fled when he could, those daily session with Professor Yermalov and the times Gordon Ross wanted his presence on the shooting range, but otherwise he had spent his time in the doctor's building.

"Yassen wants me to be on my best behaviour, sir." He could get away with using Yassen's name a little more casually when it was just Dr Three, he had found. He was still very careful to use 'Mr Gregorovich' around anyone else, but Dr Three seemed to accept it. "Staying seemed like the polite thing to do."

Yassen wanted him to be on his best behaviour but even if Alex didn't have those instructions, he had absolutely no desire to risk anything. It would have been impolite to hole up in his room, he knew that on some instinctual level, and Alex would go a long way to avoid being impolite to Dr Three. The man's permissive approach to Alex's schedule was very likely just one wrong word from getting a lot more restrictive.

The unspoken agreement with Yassen was for Alex's continued well-being. Getting to stay well away from Dr Three's lessons wasn't part of it.

"He trained you well."

"Well, he had five months to give me Stockholm syndrome," Alex replied, a little bitter.

"You read your file." Dr Three sounded approving. "Though I believe Dr Steiner was wrong in his conclusions. Hardly a polite thing to say about a fellow doctor, I'm aware, but the truth. Perhaps there is a degree of Stockholm syndrome, but the majority is, I believe, a product of time and isolation. Simple adaptation, as Ian Rider taught you."

There was something in Dr Three's expression, sharp and considering, that made Alex want to get away.

"Yassen gave us a very good impression that you had been broken entirely to his will, and you played along admirably for your age. I believe he was a little more permissive than he let us think. Zeljan is delighted to believe that your insolence was beaten out of you by brute force. I think, perhaps, that Yassen simply taught you to hide it. He could have made you Orion. He allowed you to remain Alex Rider."

 _Allowed you._ Alex wanted to object to the words, but he knew perfectly well that they were true. Yassen had been a patient mentor but Alex didn't doubt that if he had wanted to, he could have removed everything that had made Alex what he was and reshaped him into something else entirely.

"Yassen always excelled in planning for every contingency. A good second in command is an investment and not lightly wasted," Dr Three told him, "and I have little doubt that at the heart of it, he trained you as such. There are those who see things differently, of course. Julia used her second in command far more casually. It always carries an inherent risk, and certainly once such operatives become known to intelligence services. She had a number of them over the years for that reason. To a degree, you yourself are an example of such as well, though Yassen cares far more about your well-being. Your tasks are as much training as necessity of your position. Dwale has done an exceptional job as my right hand for the past twelve years. Not merely a second in command, but an administrator, assistant, apprentice, editor, and trusted representative. He had only the rudimentary background of an army medic when he arrived at the school. I ensured he was trained over the years to the standards of a medical doctor."

 _Trusted representative._ Alex hadn't understood until then just how much damage someone that high up in the hierarchy could do if they weren't loyal. Dr Three gave his second in command very loose reins and trusted him to do his job in Dr Three's name without much oversight at all. The doctor had more important things to do than micromanage his second's every decision. Nile was loyal and deadly, a skilled problem solver that asked no uncomfortable questions, but Dwale's influence was magnitudes beyond that. He was also about two decades older than Nile and with a lot more experience, which probably had a lot to say about that, too.

If Dwale hadn't been trustworthy, if Nile hadn't been … there were a number of intelligence agencies and other organisations that would give a lot for access to the sort of information they had.

Compared to that, whatever Dr Three had paid to train Dwale to what he considered suitable standards was nothing.

It was a gamble, trusting someone with that much influence, and the cost if someone got it wrong could be devastating. Dr Three did his best to weed out the dubious students these days but some still slipped through. Hunter had been before that time, but Alex hadn't been, and he had lived to graduate. Dr Three had eventually grown suspicious but not until afterwards. If Alex could do it …

… Of course, Alex had had Yassen at his back, too. That made it a lot easier to pull off that particular trick.

Was that what SCORPIA had wanted Graff's drug for? The thought wormed its way to the front of his mind, entirely unwanted. There were a lot of things someone could do with a drug like that, something that would completely subvert someone's will, and it wouldn't necessarily have to be against an outside target. The drug was still in its experimental phase, was still lethal in the long run, but it _worked._

Malagosto was a secure complex, made to keep outsiders and other unwanted curious souls out and to withstand attacks to a degree. A number of the buildings had air conditioning, the student housing among them. Air conditioning, its own water supply, food … the students knew they couldn't trust anyone, even Alex had been taught as much, but none of them would expect a threat to come from SCORPIA itself.

If SCORPIA managed to improve on that drug … it would take nothing at all to add Graff's drug to the air conditioning, and the students spent their evenings and nights in those rooms for months. Alex had been there for three months, and he was at the low end of things. Some stayed for six or seven months or more. How much damage could the drug cause in that amount of time, slow and insidious? How long would the effects linger?

… And how easy wouldn't it be to simply call back those students SCORPIA wanted a better grip on for another month or so of additional training? No one would refuse, not during their exclusive contract, and even after … the school had some excellent instructors, even Alex would admit as much. Lots of operatives would be happy for the opportunity to improve their skills even further.

Had it been Yassen, Alex would just have asked. With Dr Three …

 _In private, I will permit your curiosity._

Alex knew better than to ask. He still couldn't stop himself.

"Graff's drug -"

"Perfect, mindless obedience above all else," Dr Three agreed and sounded pleased. "You understand."

Understood just what a drug like that could do at a place like Malagosto? Entirely too well, now that the thought had settled and refused to let go. At a place like Malagosto, at an army base, at anywhere small and reasonably enclosed.

… And was it already there? Had he already been inhaling it for weeks? They'd had plenty of time since Santa Catarina to recreate the drug based on Graff's files. Alex didn't feel any different but that didn't have to mean anything. He was in the guest quarters, too, but that would be a minor detail if SCORPIA really wanted to use that drug. Was that why Dr Three had wanted him there? The drug was lethal, Alex remembered as much, but not for months down the line. Had it all just been a trap for Yassen? A couple of months of that drug, and Alex doubted he would have anything left in the way of his own personality, his own self. If Dr Three told him to target Yassen …

… If anyone could get close enough, it was Alex.

Alex could feel the colour drain from his face. He didn't try to stop it. Dr Three had to know the effect that little revelation would have on Alex. It wouldn't even matter if drugging Alex would end up costing SCORPIA the entire current class in the process. Dr Three would write off that sort of thing without a second thought.

"You -"

"The drug has yet to see use beyond scientific experiments," Dr Three said, calm and even like Alex hadn't spoken at all. "It still remains safely locked away."

 _Prove it,_ Alex didn't say, because however lenient Dr Three might be with him, even Alex knew that would be taking it too far.

Had he been having more headaches than usual? He didn't remember any. No symptoms of hay fever, either. He tried to remember what other signs Graff had mentioned and came up blank, most of his memories of that little show and tell session taken up by the brutal demonstration at the end of it.

"... I can't know that for sure," he finally said and almost managed to keep his voice steady. Still a lot less respectful than Yassen would have liked, but better.

"No," Dr Three agreed, "you can't. This is an important lesson, Orion. There is no trust in SCORPIA but what you make for yourself. Remember this, if you wish to survive as Yassen's successor."

Alex wasn't sure if that was any better than empty reassurances he couldn't trust, anyway. Would the doctor even have brought up the drug if he really had exposed Alex to it? Would he be that confident in its effect? Or was it just another mind game?

If he wanted to be completely sure to avoid every possible source of exposure at the school, he would need to sleep outside, take care of his own food, avoid the classrooms, avoid the shooting range, avoid _everything_ , even Dr Three's building. And he couldn't. Not without drawing unwanted attention and ruining his cover, and Dr Three knew it, too.

Alex couldn't trust the doctor, couldn't trust that this wasn't just an elaborate trap to target Yassen, but he couldn't do anything about it, either. Warn Yassen, but that was all. It was probably just another little game to mess with Alex's mind, but he couldn't know for sure.

How much exposure was needed? How long? Months? Weeks? How soon before the effects showed? And did it have to be constant, or was partial exposure enough? Twelve hours a day? Eight? Six? What was the lower limit? Alex didn't remember and he wasn't sure he had ever been told at all. And was it different with someone who physically speaking was not yet an adult, like Alex himself?

"Perfect, mindless obedience and unyielding loyalty has its merits," Dr Three continued, "and there are those among my colleagues who would favour such qualities in their subordinates. I am not one of them. The slight risk of disloyalty is worth the brightness in a good student. The intelligence. The drug is a wonder of science but cannot balance the victim's own personality and the desired control. Is Dwale a risk? Certainly. He is quite influential within the organisation and he possesses a comprehensive knowledge of SCORPIA's inner workings from all the years he has served as my second in command. Would it be worth the trade of his complete, unquestioning obedience? Hardly. He is so very valuable for his ability to think for himself. I can send him off in my name and expect the job to be carried out to the appropriate standards, but I can also expect him to adapt as necessary. The drug does not allow that. Not yet, at least. Future development may change that. We will see, I suppose."

Any appetite Alex had was long gone, replaced by nausea. For now, the drug was apparently not worth the drawbacks of using it on SCORPIA's own people … to Dr Three, anyway. He hadn't mentioned any names, but Alex could guess that someone like Kurst would probably be delighted at the extra security that sort of brainwashing would offer. Security was expendable, after all, like most of SCORPIA's people. Replacing them every now and then once the drug reached its lethal stage would be a minor issue. Kurst was a paranoid man but he was paranoid for a reason. He was out in public where Dr Three preferred to work in the shadows. He was a huge target to competitors and intelligence agencies and a number of other people, and his security team reflected that. Even then, even with all the background checks Kurst had undoubtedly put them through, there was always a risk.

Kurst would take mindless obedience over independent thought as long as those operatives still kept their skills. Would Chase? Mikato? Alex had no idea.

Dr Three knew a lot about the drug, Alex realised as well with a chill.

… _beyond scientific experiments._

The words echoed in Alex's mind. He had assumed the doctor referred to Graff's experiments. Realised abruptly that he had been very, very wrong.

Santa Catarina had been attacked in late July. If Yassen and his people hadn't just brought back Graff's research but samples of the drug as well, SCORPIA had had access to it for almost half a year. They wouldn't have needed to produce some first. Maybe it was still safely locked away when it came to actual use in the world outside, but SCORPIA would want to test it themselves. They wouldn't trust someone else's research. And Dr Three delighted in that sort of thing.

Was that what the doctor had spent his time on since Santa Catarina? Were there even now research subjects in some of those cells, completely dead to the outside world and utterly broken to Dr Three's will through nothing more than that drug?

Between that and the prisoners Alex had seen in the cells before, meticulously brought to the brink of death to wring them dry of information or simply as a practical demonstration for Malagosto's students, he wasn't sure what was worse. Probably the drug, he decided as his nausea spiked; the thought of slowly losing his will bit by bit and possibly even being _aware_ of it as it happened -

Interrogation was bloody and brutal, but at least the outcome was given. The drug …

Alex took a shuddering breath. Forced aside the mental images of being sent broken and oblivious to target Yassen or Sagitta … or Jack or Tom, because Dr Three would _do_ that, the perfect test of something like that; making Alex target someone who would have no chance at all against him -

"It is a remarkable drug," Dr Three continued, likely aware of just where Alex's thoughts had drifted, "but still in its infancy. It will need to be developed further. It takes patience and a delicate hand to reach the perfect balance as it is now and even then, the drawbacks remain. Dr Graff was quite right that it remains ultimately lethal even with the most cautious of approaches. A postmortem will reveal slight but significant damage to parts of the brain, though it takes a trained eye to see. A less cautious approach will make such damage all the more visible."

Postmortem. _Dissection,_ Alex's mind filled in. Of course. He wasn't even surprised.

"Take the rest of the evening off," Dr Three said, not unkindly. Maybe he understood he had pushed Alex as far as he could for now. "Consider what I have told you. Dismissed."

"Yes, sir," Alex managed on habit more than anything.

He avoided the dining hall. His room, when he reached it, suddenly felt a lot more claustrophobic than it had before.

* * *

 _We discussed Graff's drug today._ There was only so vague Alex could be about it, but he did his best and hoped Yassen would understand. He didn't know what time it was wherever Yassen and Sagitta were. He didn't even know for sure where that was. All he cared about was the small icon that told him Yassen was there.

 _Its uses were only ever limited by imagination and opportunity._ For long seconds, nothing else appeared on Alex's screen. Then more words followed. _It does have its limitations. Based on the demonstration, the amount needed to subvert a sufficiently strong will would leave signs of its use to those suitably familiar with the subject._

That was as close as Yassen could get to saying that he would be able to spot its use in Alex and not flat-out state it, and something in Alex's chest eased. There was no guarantee, of course, but … it helped.

 _I think Dr Three agrees._ At least he preferred Dwale with a mind and will of his own.

 _The good doctor always preferred the more hands-on methods to ensure loyalty and weed out the potentially unreliable candidates._

The knot of anxiety eased a little more. Another indication that Dr Three had most likely spoken the truth about the use of the drug. Not that there was much Alex could do about it beyond warning Yassen.

 _Thank you,_ he wrote and meant it.

 _Go to sleep, Alex,_ Yassen replied, and Alex smiled. For Yassen, that was practically warm and cuddly.

 _Yes, sir._

Maybe it wasn't the best sleep Alex had ever had, but it was leagues better than what he had expected after his talk with Dr Three.

* * *

Next: Alex feels like the goat in Jurassic Park sometimes and he's really not okay with that.


	59. Under Pressure

It was three weeks into January by the time Alex's routine was broken again. He had been rattled after his talk with Dr Three and the realisation of just how devastating Graff's drug could be, but he had dealt with it the best he could. There wasn't anything else he could do.

The topic had not been brought up again, though Alex's new-found paranoia never entirely went away. He suspected that had been Dr Three's goal in the first place.

Did the students have any idea of the sort of political games they were about to get tangled up in if they graduated? Alex certainly hadn't. Then again, as everyone liked to point out, he was a bit of an unusual case. Maybe normal operatives didn't get tangled up in things to that degree.

When Alex had arrived that morning and Dr Three had greeted him with a thoughtful expression, he had been instantly on edge. He had learned to be wary of that expression.

"It seems your presence has drawn Zeljan's attention slightly sooner than I expected. We have a lunch appointment tomorrow. Dress for polite company. You will be my primary security for the day."

Not what Alex had expected at all, but this was what they had been waiting for. This was why he was there. The first, small steps to make Kurst take an interest in him. It didn't stop the sudden knot of anxiety in Alex's chest. "Weapons, sir?"

He was armed at Malagosto but he could carry weapons openly at the school and no one even looked twice. They would be more likely to stare if he didn't. Outside of the school grounds would be a lot different.

"I trust your good judgement. You know not to draw attention."

As many as he could carry and not draw any unfortunate questions, then. Maybe he wouldn't need to use them – he really hoped so, anyway – but he felt better with them there. There would be other security, a full team for Kurst and several proper guards for Dr Three as well, but Alex would be the primary person responsible for Dr Three's safety. While keeping up a good enough act to draw Kurst's attention to a degree where he would consider Alex worth the effort of negotiating with Dr Three for him. No pressure at all.

Alex nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Excellent. Your homework for the day?"

"The Somali Civil War, sir." Not just articles but a number of military reports and SCORPIA's own intel, hundreds of pages in total that he would be expected to read and understand, a world away from the history books he had been used to in school. He had flipped through a few of the reports that morning and they made for grim reading.

"SCORPIA has had excellent business in the country," Dr Three said and very obviously didn't agree with Alex's assessment of the situation. "It remains a profitable conflict. War brings opportunities. Military casualties are so very inconvenient for most elected politicians. At times, it is much simpler to hire other to carry out such tasks."

People that could be written off if necessary and didn't come with uncomfortable questions from the press if they happened to get killed on some mission or another of highly dubious legal status. Excelsi Security was mostly on the legal side of things. Adams had mentioned that SCORPIA had had people in Mogadishu for years. Alex doubted the jobs there were anywhere near as legal.

"You would be surprised at the number of former military people in our employ," Dr Three pointed out and had obviously spotted Alex's doubts. Not that it would be hard to, and Alex knew it. "The simple fact that we pay better and do not demand a strict adherence to arbitrary rules is a remarkable incentive alone. We would not be able to employ such a number if we gained a reputation for treating our soldiers callously."

Alex probably didn't look all that convinced because the doctor continued.

"Your own combat team – are you aware of how they came to be?"

Sort of. Alex had a vague idea but never really asked. That part of their file hadn't been that detailed, it hadn't been important, and it had never come up. "Marcus was a potential candidate for Malagosto, except he didn't work well on his own, so he was allowed to put together a team instead."

Dr Three nodded slightly. "Where do you think he chose those people? Most of them came from within our ranks of soldiers. Private military contractors if you are polite. Mercenaries, if you wish to be crude about it. There were exceptions, certainly – one of your medics was lured away from another combat team – but most came from those companies. Skilled people trained by a number of different armed forces."

Alex swallowed. Dr Three knew an uncomfortable amount of things about Sagitta and Alex knew perfectly well that was because of him. One lone and fairly new combat team would never have been worth the attention of one of the executive board. Not unless there was something else that drew that attention.

Potential leverage. Alex cared. That made them valuable. Yassen had warned him against getting attached. Alex had thought it was because it would leave him with morals and make him unable to just write off human lives the way the rest of SCORPIA did. Because he would have qualms about putting his people in harm's way. Now he understood. He had grown attached. It was simultaneously protection for Sagitta and enough to paint a huge target on their backs if someone understood Alex well enough. Like Dr Three did.

Nile had a favoured combat team, too, but Nile only cared to the degree that they did their job. He wouldn't even blink if someone tried to use their well-being against him.

"They have served you well so far," Dr Three said. Alex suspected the doctor knew where his thoughts were going, because his eyes were sharp and he had waited patiently for Alex to focus on him again.

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed quietly, as much in response to the spoken question as an acknowledgement that he understood the doctor's unspoken point just as well. Sagitta was both a strength and a liability. Skilled soldiers all of them but still SCORPIA's in the end and used to taking orders. If Dr Three decided to use them against Alex, there would be nothing he could do to protect them.

Sagitta had served him well so far. That could very easily change.

"SCORPIA does not hire substandard people. Read your homework with an eye on the business opportunities. Commander Marcus' people are better than most, as all of our combat teams are, but we only employ skilled soldiers and those are well aware of the realities of their job."

Both a dismissal and sign that the conversation was over for now.

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed again.

He settled down with his reports and a notebook and began to read. It would be a tense, uncomfortable silence in the office that day.

* * *

Evening found Alex with another uncomfortable conversation. A bit, anyway. Well, it was probably only awkward and uncomfortable to him. He assumed Crux would find it pretty amusing.

Alex had the clothes for a visit to a nice restaurant but a long look in the mirror before dinner had left him with another problem.

The last proper haircut he'd had was … a while ago. When Crux had cut it short in Singapore to suit the cover of Alexander Owen. That had been ten months ago. Haircuts had been pretty far down on Alex's list of priorities since then, and while he had cut some of it himself when it got too annoying, most of it was getting long. Long and showing the wear and tear of his assignments. He had worn a wig during his two weeks in the States, a little annoying with longish hair underneath but something Crux felt was useful to get used to. True enough, a few days into their trip, Alex had learned to ignore it and hadn't paid attention to it since.

He hadn't thought about the state of his hair all that much, not unless some of it got inconveniently long. He would cut it eventually. Now, though … it really didn't suit the image he suspected Dr Three had in mind.

Alex doubted Dr Three was about to let him leave the school for hours just for a haircut, never mind the lack of time to do it in, and Alex knew it would turn into a disaster if he tried to do it himself.

That left him with a grand total of one alternative he could think of.

Alex caught Crux before she could leave after dinner and shifted uncomfortably at her raised eyebrow, a silent question in her eyes.

"This is going to sound really stupid," Alex admitted, "but would you cut my hair?"

Crux's lips twitched, so slight that it might have been Alex's imagination. "You mean it's not a fashion statement?"

Alex's lips twitched at that as well, almost against his will. "That's probably not going to go over well at a fancy restaurant. Dr Three wants me for security tomorrow. I haven't – I've been doing mostly security assignments recently. Nobody cares about my haircut there."

"You've had other things on your mind," Crux agreed. "Come along."

She didn't wait to see if Alex followed. She probably knew he would. She led him to the staff building and her apartment near the end of the main hallway. Alex had never been inside of one of those apartments before but the one that revealed itself when she unlocked the door looked … surprisingly normal.

A clean living room kept mostly in light colours, a small kitchen, a closed door that Alex assumed led to a bedroom, and the glimpse of a bathroom through a partially-open door.

Crux brought a chair to the kitchen and Alex settled down, the whole thing oddly familiar from Singapore. Loose hair was probably a lot easier to sweep up from the smooth kitchen floor. She vanished for a moment and returned with a small bag of supplies.

It felt – different this time. Looking back, he had been oblivious in Singapore, but now he was keenly aware of the sharp scissors near his throat. He trusted that Crux wouldn't hurt him – trusted that he hadn't done anything to make Dr Three decide their agreement was void, at least – but it was still slightly unnerving. He had been perfectly comfortable with a razor by his throat in Yassen's hands. Crux was a potential enemy. Maybe not now, but – potentially. And Alex couldn't quite forget it.

Alex heard the sound of the scissors near his ear. The first bits of hair drifted to the floor. "You haven't taken very good care of it," Crux remarked. "The ends are a mess, and you've got a few bits that were burned off. Nothing too noticeable."

Alex remembered the searing heat and the embers from the burning buildings on Rensburg's estate and wasn't surprised. He hadn't really noticed anything at the time or spotted it later for that matter, but he hadn't really looked, either.

"Nobody bothered to hire a hairdresser for the assignment. Maybe we didn't charge enough."

"Possibly," Crux agreed. "I'll teach you to cut it on your own. It will be useful later. You won't always have the luxury of a hair salon."

Even with the slightly uneasy feeling that came whenever the scissors moved too close to his throat, it was still weirdly soothing. Neither spoke and only the sound of slow, steady cuts through hair broke the silence. There was something about human contact that Alex had only learned to appreciate for what it was once he was alone. Jack was an affectionate person. She hugged. She ruffled his hair. She was warm and present and exuberant. Yassen … really wasn't. And there was no one else. He had Sagitta sometimes, but they really weren't affectionate people, either, and with someone like Crux there was always the lingering knowledge that they were one order away from being an enemy. Still it was soothing, gentle hands moving through his hair and the low sound of the scissors, and Alex let himself relax. Just a little.

Eventually Crux put the scissors aside and ruffled his hair to get rid of any loose bits. A few rounds with a comb had the mess back to something that resembled normal again.

A glance in the mirror she handed him revealed that she had cut his hair back to about what it had been in London. Longer than in Singapore, but a good bit shorter than what Alex had let it grow to since then.

Alex ran a hand through it. It felt nice. Familiar.

"Thank you."

Crux smiled. "We'll see about teaching you to do it yourself when we have the time. Good luck tomorrow. You'll do fine."

Well, Alex hoped so, anyway. He didn't want to consider the consequences if he didn't.

* * *

 _I'm on security detail tomorrow_ , Alex wrote that evening, suitably vague about things. He knew Yassen would get it. He wasn't sure if Dr Three kept Yassen up to date on things, or if Yassen did the same in return. Maybe. Probably not. Alex had no idea. Logic said yes, paranoia said no.

 _I expect you to remember your training and obey your instructions._

Including the instructions to play his role and draw Kurst's attention.

 _Yes, sir._ He didn't want to ask, didn't want to draw more attention to Sagitta if anyone was actually watching their conversation, but he also knew it was too late for that. Dr Three had proven that without the shadow of doubt. _Sagitta?_

 _They have performed their task to acceptable standards so far._

They were all right then, them and Yassen both. Alex felt a bit of the tension in his body ease. He still didn't like being so far away from everything but it helped with the occasional update.

 _Thank you._

It was one less thing to worry about. At least for now.

* * *

Alex got changed after breakfast the following morning.

Two of the t-shirts and one of the simple, white shirts among his sparse selection of clothes were gifts from Yassen, the same sort of ballistic fabric that had saved his life in Miami. The t-shirts were still slightly loose and left room to grow, as Alex knew they would need to unless he wanted to have grown out of them within six months. The formal shirt was better fitted, well enough to allow for a light ballistic vest underneath. With a nice jacket on top, it would look perfectly normal.

The image that greeted him in the mirror half an hour later looked … surprisingly respectable. He would need to, it was a nice restaurant, but it was still a little odd to look at himself and know he had two layers of light body armour on and had managed to hide away two guns, three additional magazines, and a matched pair of combat knives as backup.

Yassen would be proud.

He also looked his age, as Crux's choice of haircut had clearly intended to as well. SCORPIA liked to emphasise just how young he was, though he knew it wouldn't be that long before he got too old for that. Sixteen and seventeen looked a lot less harmless than fourteen and fifteen did, and Alex was in excellent physical condition to boot.

Alex slipped soundlessly into the main room of Dr Three's building and found the man there, talking to Crux.

She smiled at Alex, brief but genuine, but didn't turn her attention from Dr Three. The man didn't acknowledge Alex but then, Alex hadn't expected him to, either.

"- will leave her in your capable hands," Dr Three finished. Crux nodded and left, and the man's attention turned to Alex.

Sharp eyes took in his appearance. The clothes and the newly-cut hair and the distinct lack of any visible weapons. Alex kept from fidgeting. He was uncomfortably reminded of waiting for Yu's verdict in Australia.

Finally Dr Three nodded. "You clean up quite well. Body armour?"

"Ballistic vest and fabric, sir," Alex agreed.

"Armed?"

"Two guns and knives and extra ammunition." All of which Yassen and Malagosto had ensured Alex could use to devastating effects.

Another nod. The doctor looked approving. "Yassen always had a talent for looking so deceptively harmless when required. I'm pleased to see it has carried on to you."

There was a car waiting for them by the entrance, a white Mercedes like Alex had expected. What he hadn't expected was that it was just the two of them.

Dr Three seemed to notice his confusion. "Giosetta just began resistance to interrogation this morning. I have left my assistants with young Crux for the day. The rest of my security detail will already be in position by the time we arrive. Security on a level such as this is a logistic puzzle. Any mistake can cost dearly."

That teacher-voice again. Alex nodded, remembering his own, brief lessons in executive protection.

"Yes, sir."

A car drive with Dr Three wasn't quite as awkward and uncomfortable as Alex had expected but it still wasn't a relaxed experience by any means. The doctor spent the time working. Alex spent it staring out the window, mentally going over everything he could remember from his lessons in an attempt to keep the thoughts of the many things that could go wrong at bay.

Alex didn't know the restaurant they finally arrived at but it was obviously a fairly expensive one. They were shown to a quiet room with a view of the sea. Kurst was already there with his bodyguard, an emotionless man standing by the wall behind him where he could watch the room. The rest of his security detail was around somewhere as well – Alex had spotted two guests on the way that he was almost sure were part of it – but his bodyguard was the only obvious one. Dr Three's security waited outside. Between the amount of people the two of them had brought, there would be plenty of time to leave in case of trouble.

Alex wondered if that was the usual amount of security for a lunch meeting. Probably. The executive board had a lot of people out for their blood. At least it made him feel better to know he wasn't the only person responsible for Dr Three's well-being.

They weren't alone in the restaurant; there were a couple of other tables that were occupied as well, but something told Alex that wouldn't be a problem. Something about them made every instinct in him send up little red flags that they were probably involved in illegal stuff as well. Several of them seemed to have brought security as well, though theirs remained seated.

Dr Three settled easily at the table across from Kurst. A slight gesture at Alex saw him settle three steps away; close enough to step in if anything happened but far enough away to give some illusion of privacy.

Alex could feel Kurst's eyes on him as he watched the small, unspoken order and Alex's response to it.

Kurst's attention returned to his colleague. "Well-trained," he observed.

Dr Three's smile was a little fond. "Young Yassen did an exceptional job with him. He's not as used to non-verbal orders from others, of course, but he learns fast. He is a little conspicuous for his age and a bit of a high-value target at the moment, unfortunately, but a few months as security at Malagosto seemed like a good way to bring him out of reach of the intelligence agencies. He was sent through bodyguard training for a reason. He is a bright student and used to obeying orders. A delight to teach."

Alex mostly kept an eye on their surroundings like the security he was supposed to be for the day, but he still felt Kurst's eyes on him again for long seconds, dark and unreadable, before the man looked away again.

Alex didn't let out a relieved breath but he was tempted. It felt – exposed, being there alone. Yassen hadn't been there any of the other times, either, but this was different. Isolated in a way he hadn't been before.

If they couldn't trust Dr Three's goals and motives … but then, if they couldn't trust those, Alex was in big trouble, anyway, and the doctor knew the consequences of that. Kurst's presence didn't help. The two times Alex had been alone with the man had been to receive his first assignment and to report on the disaster that had been Santa Catarina. The only time he had been alone with Kurst and Dr Three before had been when he had been summoned to check his tracker.

Nothing on that list had any kind of good memories associated with it.

A waiter arrived to stand silently by the side as they got ready to order. Alex noticed that Kurst's bodyguard had tensed for a moment, just like Alex himself had. The waiter seemed unperturbed. Maybe he was used to it.

Silence reigned. Eventually they ordered and the waiter left again. Their conversation picked up, low enough not to be heard at any other table, though Alex was close enough to listen in. He tried not to, focused on security and their surroundings instead. He knew there would be trouble if he looked a little too curious about the subjects.

The bits and pieces he caught were normal business. The continued lack of solid leads behind Duval's kidnapping. Business opportunities in the power vacuum left behind after Yu. The remaining fragments of Duval's intelligence network and what to do about them.

Neither of the two seemed to be in any rush. Maybe they genuinely liked each other's company, for a given definition of the term. They couldn't trust each other, no one on the executive board did, but that didn't rule out that maybe they enjoyed the conversation, anyway.

Enough, at least, that they stayed there for the better part of three hours. Alex's feet were starting to hurt. He resisted the urge to give in to the restlessness. Kurst's bodyguard looked as emotionless as ever.

For the most part, Kurst was focused on the conversation, but occasionally Alex felt his focus shift slightly to where Alex stood. Cold. Calculating. Considering. It was not a nice place to be.

Eventually the table was cleared. The bill was paid. The two men got up and Kurst's full attention came to rest on Alex again.

Kurst snapped his fingers once. Alex got the message immediately but glanced at Dr Three in a silent question as expected of him.

A slight nod got him the permission required, and Alex crossed the last few steps to Kurst. Kurst's bodyguard didn't look too happy but he also wasn't about to argue with his boss.

Kurst's attention was not a pleasant thing. The occasional glances had been bad enough. This was downright unnerving. His eyes, dark and dull, never quite let go of the implicit threat of violence in them, and it wasn't made any better by the fact that the man had taken a personal interest in Alex by way of John Rider.

"He looks like a younger Hunter. He'll grow out of some of it, but the relation is clear. Doesn't have the personality for it, though."

Kurst never looked away from him, keeping a close eye on Alex's every reaction.

"Yassen found him young," Dr Three agreed. "Children are far more malleable. A delight to teach, a blank slate of potential, but so rare to find one so young who might survive to graduate. Most would be a wasted investment."

Alex got no warning, just the sudden, harsh grip of a hand around his chin to force his head up. Alex wasn't short for his age anymore, but Kurst was tall and built like a bull and the hard grip left little doubt that getting up in the years or not, the man was still mostly muscle. He was uncomfortably aware of just how easy it would be for Kurst to kill him, and his pulse kicked up a notch, fluttering beneath his skin.

The glint of malevolent satisfaction in Kurst's eyes told Alex he had noticed, too. Alex wasn't good at hiding his emotions. If his pulse hadn't given him away, Alex was almost sure something in his expression would have.

Then the man let go again. Alex took a slightly unsteady breath. Kurst stepped away. "A pleasure as always, doctor."

Kurst didn't wait for his bodyguard. The man obviously knew his boss and had already anticipated his actions, because he was at Kurst's side the moment the man moved to the door.

Dr Three waited a moment longer before he followed at a more relaxed pace, Alex at his side.

Neither spoke until they were back in the car again. Alex had spotted some of the doctor's security detail outside. Kurst's was already gone.

"You did well," Dr Three finally said.

Some of the tension in Alex's body eased at the words, just slightly. That was what they had aimed for. That was their goal. If he had messed that up, if they had calculated wrong … "Thank you, sir."

"He will find an excuse to borrow you," the doctor continued. "The thought of Hunter's son at his beck and call is too much of a siren song to refuse. Well done, Orion."

That was what they wanted. That was their one chance to target Kurst. It didn't make Alex feel better in the slightest.

* * *

 _Security detail went well._

The response came almost instantly.

 _Well done, Alex._

* * *

Next: Filling in the blanks a continent away.


	60. Interlude: Kyushu

Yassen Gregorovich was not pleased to leave the Middle East without Alex Rider.

The five days prior had been a race to work out the exact consequences of Dr Three's unwanted interference, made no easier by the fact that Yassen had so seriously underestimated just what the man was capable of. He was not used to making mistakes of that magnitude. He was not used to making mistakes at all.

Alex Rider was safe for now, Yassen was reasonably sure of that. If the child behaved – and Yassen believed he had trained him well enough for that – Dr Three would have little reason to harm him. For now, at least. Alex's stay at Malagosto was unlikely to be pleasant, but he would be safe. For now, at least, Dr Three would serve as his patron as much as his keeper.

Yassen had done his best to keep from showing just how annoyed and rattled he was with the situation. Alex responded to his moods; a result of his training that Yassen normally found useful but in this case was somewhat inconvenient. Yassen needed Alex calm. The boy would be tense enough without adding Yassen's uneasiness to it as well.

Yassen left Abu Dhabi on a Gulfstream bound for Japan and in the company of Sagitta. To his experienced eye, they looked as uneasy about not having Alex around as Yassen did, though for likely different reasons.

Then again, Yassen conceded, they were perhaps not the most observant of people but they did well enough for a combat team. They likely had some inkling that something was wrong. If not that, Yassen had no doubt that they were uneasy at best about being directly under his command. They were used to Orion. They were not used to dealing directly with Yassen Gregorovich as the most recent member of the executive board.

The silence had been awkward and stilted at first, though Yassen didn't particularly care. He had simply brought out his laptop and continued his work on the various files he had on his fellow surviving members of the board. His intel on Mikato was lacking and likely to be outdated fairly soon. They would need to move fast to be able to keep up with Mikato's increased security. Chase … would have to wait. For now, the man had yet to settle down again. Like an agitated hornet, Yassen expected him to flutter about angrily for a while, looking for targets until he calmed down again.

Eventually the team began to relax. Slowly. Conversation picked up, low and cautious. Careful not to disturb him.

Yassen had been waiting for one of them to work up their nerve. As such he was not surprised when Marcus approached him an hour into the flight. He was not the sort to let one of his men run a risk he wouldn't take himself.

Uneasy but determined. Sagitta had worked out that something was wrong.

"Sir?" the man asked and continued at Yassen's slight gesture. "We have a question. Orion -"

"- Will spend the time during this assignment apprenticed to Dr Three."

Yassen was mildly curious if the curt response would make the man back down. Something in Marcus' expression, the way his features hardened, told him no.

"He didn't look too happy with that, sir."

"SCORPIA," Yassen responded, deceptively mild, "does not require Orion's approval. He simply has to follow orders."

"I don't buy it. Sir," Marcus added, a little belated. He wouldn't have lasted at Malagosto, Yassen knew, too impulsive and short-tempered, but he worked well in charge of a combat team.

Yassen let the silence stretch on for long seconds, enough to make Marcus shift tensely. Wondering if he had overstepped his bounds, if he had any sense. Only then did Yassen respond. He and Alex had agreed that the team needed to know what they had become involved in. That did not mean Yassen had to make it easy for them. "Dr Three is far more observant than most would be comfortable with. He had worked out our intentions and found that they aligned with his own. We reached a … suitable agreement."

Marcus did not hide his emotions well. Yassen could see the moment he mentally ran through the explanation to decipher the vague words and reached the appropriate conclusion.

"He kept Orion as a hostage."

"I believe the good doctor prefers 'insurance'."

"We left a fifteen-year-old kid behind with SCORPIA's interrogation specialist as a _hostage._ "

Yassen arched an eyebrow slightly. Marcus swallowed hard. "Sir," he added, a bit half-hearted and undoubtedly aware that Yassen knew just how much of a formality it was right now.

Yassen briefly considered what approach to use. How much to say. The team had proven trustworthy and rather attached to Yassen's young second in command. They were soft for a combat team. The attachment would serve Alex well in the future, but right now it could easily become a problem.

"Dr Three is somewhat fond of Orion," Yassen said and chose his words after some consideration. "Orion will be as much apprentice as hostage. As long as he behaves, he will be safe and well-treated. He has good memories of his own time at Malagosto. Perhaps he will not enjoy all of his lessons, but he will be treated like a student and not a prisoner."

He did not need to mention that Alex's well-being depended on Yassen's own actions. Marcus understood that quite well. He also saw no need to mention Alex's job as bait for Zeljan Kurst. Yassen sincerely doubted Sagitta would take that any better, and there was no reason for them to know.

Marcus still didn't look overly reassured. Yassen hadn't expected him to, either. "He's fifteen, sir."

"He will be sixteen soon." An arbitrary number, Yassen supposed, but meaningful in a number of legal ways. "Old enough to enlist in the British armed forces with parental consent – of which he has none. His guardianship is held by MI6. Do you believe they would not have made use of that upon his birthday? They used his caretaker for blackmail to force him into service at fourteen. Consider him an adult. He is well aware of the realities of the world already."

Teenagers weren't generally known for their common sense in Yassen's experience but Alex Rider did surprisingly well. His age still showed at times, of course, and Yassen expected nothing less, but for the most part he did well enough. Alex Rider had been treated as an adult from the moment he left London and he had responded accordingly and grown with the expectations and responsibilities.

Any normal fifteen-year-old would have had no chance at all with Dr Three. Orion, trained by Yassen and Malagosto, knew enough about SCORPIA politics to survive and was valuable enough for now to remain safe. Yassen did not like to leave him behind but at least he had no reason to doubt Alex's determination to stay on the doctor's good side.

Marcus did not look happy. He didn't argue, though. Just nodded once, sharply, and returned to his seat. Well aware that any argument would be a lost cause, Yassen was sure. The team did not have to like it. Yassen certainly didn't. They simply had to accept it.

The low murmurs started up again. Yassen returned to his laptop and ignored them. They would deal with it, one way or another.

The Gulfstream landed at Fukuoka Airport well into the evening and almost nine hours after it took off from Abu Dhabi. There were a number of things to be done, but for now their priority was a good night's sleep and sorting out supplies in the morning.

Alex's email arrived right around two at night local time; nine in the evening back at Malagosto. Short and simple, with the pre-arranged phrase to let Yassen know he was safe for now, and a brief note that he was going to bed.

Yassen didn't blame him. He expected Alex to be exhausted, if mentally more than physically, and he wasn't surprised that the boy was retiring for the night. By coincidence, some four and a half thousand miles away, Yassen was about to do the same.

There were a number of things to be handled, but that could wait. Sagitta had retired for the night as well. Their meetings with various contacts had been arranged before they ever left the Middle East. Come morning, they would hunt. For now, it was time to enjoy the last night of quiet rest for weeks to come.

* * *

Hideo Mikato had made his home in the mountainous interior of Kyushu. From the outside it looked much like a traditional Japanese house. Protected by discreet but effective fences, surveillance, and a number of other defences, but much like a traditional Japanese home beyond that.

Yassen knew from his own research that the house was for the most part no more than fifteen years old. Parts of it had been taken from older, traditional buildings and the materials reused to give the place the proper appearance, but the heart of it was built from scratch to Mikato's specifications.

It was located in a fairly remote, isolated area, too far away from other people to invite unwanted questions or interest, and remote enough to give Mikato's security more freedom to act without drawing unfortunate attention. It had worked in Mikato's favour for years. Now, with a combat team used to drawn-out hunts at his back, Yassen planned to use it in his own favour instead. Sagitta was mainly used to operations in the Middle East but that did not make them any less competent when it came to camouflage, nor any less patient when it came to the long wait.

Mostly on accident, Alex Rider had chosen well that day in Miami when Yassen had given him free reins to pick his own backup. It had been a test of sort from Yassen's side combined with curiosity about Alex's priorities and thought-process, but it had worked out exceptionally well. None of the combat teams would have been completely unsuited for the task in Miami, but it said a lot about Alex what team he had chosen in the end.

They had spent several days getting supplies and equipment handled, enough to last them for weeks. It was not one of Yassen's usual sort of missions but not entirely foreign to him either. Perhaps the weather, a little above freezing and frequently cloudy, could have been better, but even that was only a minor bother.

There had always been the question whether Mikato would give up his current home as a lost cause or take the risk. As Mikato saw it, Chase had been targeted due to Duval's knowledge of his home – knowledge that he wasn't supposed to have but which Yassen didn't doubt most of the board had, anyway. That put Mikato at the same risk.

Of course, there were differences, too. Chase had taken a large risk when he had settled in Australia while still hunted by ASIS. Mikato was politically powerful, with a massive criminal network at his disposal, and that made his position somewhat less exposed.

The choice between the investment of a new home built to suitable standards or the risk of remaining in a safe but known one. A new place would take time to build. Perhaps Mikato would change his mind later, but for now it was obvious he planned to take that risk.

Yassen saw vans arrive on a daily basis from a number of construction and security companies. The first heavy equipment and supplies began to slowly arrive in the days after Yassen and Sagitta had set up their semi-permanent surveillance posts.

Mikato would stay for now, but he clearly planned to increase the level of security. Yassen had expected nothing less.

Four days after their arrival in Japan, Yassen got the last test results from the two private hospitals he had trusted with Alex's health. There was nothing in the results Yassen did not expect. Dr Three's threat had been far from an empty one, but he had also been truthful about the last injection. For now, at least, Alex Rider remained in good health.

Alex forwarded the same results to him a few hours later, just in case. Yassen had them already but he still appreciated it.

He could imagine Alex slept better for those results, too.

* * *

 _Things are progressing ahead of schedule,_ Yassen wrote, the vague sort of update he knew Alex would understand. Things had gone well so far. _Status?_

It was late enough for Alex that he was back in his own room, likely still busy with homework. The response came fast, at least.

 _My Arabic is improving. I think Professor Yermalov is a sadist. Dr Three is – nicer than I thought he would be._

Yassen felt himself smile slightly, almost against his will. Alex had grown used to Yassen's own standards for training, harsh on a good day and magnitudes worse on a bad. It spoke volumes that he would call Yermalov a sadist. Yassen expected that Alex would come out of the experience a number of bruises and some skills richer.

The last part of the message was reassuring. Perhaps Alex did not enjoy his time at Malagosto this time around, but they were both well aware it could have been worse. Alex Rider was doing as well as Yassen could expect. The fact that he seemed to be hard at work would add some protection as well. Dr Three had never had any patience with lazy students.

 _No one learns by being coddled,_ Yassen wrote back. He hesitated slightly and wondered how to continue. How vague he could keep it and still make Alex understand. _I am pleased to hear that. Remember your instructions._

 _Yes, sir,_ Alex wrote back almost immediate, and Yassen knew he got it.

* * *

"By the time they're done, that place could be a fortress," Marcus said after a week of watching the slowly increasing security around Mikato's home. "We might get the intel but we won't be able to do a thing about it."

That would always be a risk and Yassen was aware of it, though it would take a lot more security than he expected Mikato to be willing to pay for. "He has been careful to maintain the building's traditional appearance," Yassen replied. "No one is untouchable."

Perhaps his own intel would have been enough to strike before the attacks on Duval and Chase but he suspected not. He had an idea of the outside defences as they used to be. The interior had been unknown territory. Perhaps the interior would remain so, but they would have a much more detailed layout of the rest of the defences. Somewhere, there would be a weakness. Mikato was vain; somewhere his vanity would have overruled security concerns just enough to offer an opening. Yassen merely had to find it.

Mikato himself appeared every so often. He had business in a number of places but seemed to take a personal interest in his upgraded security, much like Yassen himself would have done.

"His car," Shale said. "B6 armour? That's what Duval had."

Mikato's car, a dark BMW, was clearly meant to give the impression of nothing more than a successful businessman, but its armour was blatantly obvious to someone like Yassen who knew exactly what to look for.

"Assume B7," Yassen replied. "He is far more exposed than Duval as well."

It was … unfamiliar to have two snipers at his back. Since Hunter, Yassen had worked almost entirely alone until he had taken Alex on as his student. Neither Shale nor Jarek were anywhere close to Yassen's skills but they were competent enough, and it was not entirely unwelcome to have someone else around who understood the finer aspects of the job. So much the better that they weren't Malagosto's. Alex had chosen well.

Shale made a humming sound and watched the car thoughtfully as it vanished into the compound. "That won't be easy. We'll need some heavy weaponry for that."

"If necessary, we will have it." One way or the other, Yassen would make sure of it. As for Mikato's armour, even high quality protection would not be enough to stop a 20mm round or three. They would need to coordinate with the strikes against Chase and Kurst, of course, but that was the least of it. With proper support … it was doable.

Of course, the Yakuza were likely to be a little offended at the assassination of one of their high-ranking members, but that was hardly Yassen's problem. They would leave no evidence behind.

Yassen still had the lingering awareness that he would need to decide what to do about Dr Three as well, but that would have to wait. He was just as aware that as things were, any attempt to act would see Alex pay the price.

And then there was Rothman, a lingering shade in all of Yassen's adult life. That, too, was something to see to in time.

A lot of things to see to. A lot of things that could go wrong and a heavy price to pay for failure.

When it all came down to it, Yassen supposed it wasn't all that different from most of his career. This time, however, he was working for himself and not whatever client had paid enough to gain SCORPIA's attention.

It was a strangely satisfying thought.

* * *

 _We discussed Graff's drug today._

That was … not the message that Yassen had expected. He did not know how they had ended up on the topic, Alex and the doctor, but it could be nothing good. Alex was used enough to SCORPIA politics by now to understand the horrifying potential of the drug – and to equally understand how little protection he had against it, if Dr Three chose to use it.

 _Its uses were only ever limited by imagination and opportunity._ Yassen paused for a second and considered his words. _It does have its limitations. Based on the demonstration, the amount needed to subvert a sufficiently strong will would leave signs of its use to those suitably familiar with the subject._

Graff's test subject was perhaps in the extreme end of things, but Yassen had trained Alex Rider in perfect isolation for five months. If Alex were compromised, Yassen trusted he would be able to tell.

 _I think Dr Three agrees._

Yassen considered the doctor's personal preferences and agreed with Alex's assessment. The drug had a lot of potential, and all the more so if SCORPIA could find a way around its minor, unfortunate side-effects. Dr Three was still the type who trusted his own skills above all else and who appreciated the knowledge that could be gained when he pushed his students to their breaking point. The drug would leave little opportunity for that.

 _The good doctor always preferred the more hands-on methods to ensure loyalty and weed out the potentially unreliable candidates,_ Yassen wrote back. That method had served SCORPIA well for a number of years. There were the occasional failures but they were few and far between these days. The doctor was exceptionally skilled in his field.

 _Thank you._

Yassen doubted Alex would have been able to sleep much with those thoughts running through his head. Considering his close proximity to Dr Three, Yassen could hardly fault him for that. Alex was concerned, though Yassen suspected it was less about being compromised like that and more about the risk he might pose to Yassen himself if that happened. No amount of training had been able to remove Alex's tendency to get attached, and Yassen hadn't tried all that hard, to be honest.

 _Go to sleep, Alex._

 _Yes, sir._

Maybe Alex wouldn't sleep well, but at least Yassen knew he would be able to sleep.

* * *

Yassen and Sagitta's world became that mountainous landscape; the forest and the mild winter weather and their reconnaissance mission. Different from the team's usual places of deployment and with somewhat higher stakes but essentially a mission like any other.

Yassen trusted their ability to gather the intel and not give their presence away, and so he could afford to focus on outside factors as well. Supplies, for one. Future plans. The politics of SCORPIA, and the two distinct but still similar worlds that Mikato moved between, much like Yu had balanced the interests of SCORPIA and his own snakehead successfully for two decades.

Hideo Mikato had survived several assassination attempts, though none had targeted his home. Yassen was not surprised. It was a fairly secure location and certainly well beyond most assassins' ability to take on. Most assassins worked alone and Mikato's home did not have the obvious vulnerabilities to take advantage of. The man had few habits as well, and even fewer that would be useful to target him.

Still, there were weaknesses, and certainly to someone like Yassen. Vanity. Overconfidence, like most of the executive board. Mikato had spent too long at the top of the food chain. He had forgotten how to handle himself without a professional security detail around. He had grown used to the protection that came through the power he wielded.

Mikato would pay to improve his security, he could not afford not to, but he obviously planned to stay.

Yassen would have written off the place without hesitation. He would not have been happy to do so, but with security potentially that heavily compromised, with Brendan Chase as an example of the worst case scenario, he would have done so without blinking. A decade ago, Mikato would have done the same. These days, he saw himself as near-untouchable. With the sort of influence the man had with a number of high-ranking government officials, perhaps it was not entirely unwarranted, but still.

Vain. Overconfident. Arrogant.

Would he stay to defend the place if it came under attack? Chase had not. Yassen doubted Mikato would, either.

Leave. Trust security and the heavy defences to handle it. Get even one way or another afterwards. He was safe from his own government. Other governments … a black ops force on foreign soil would be an embarrassment for any nation, and Mikato had enough power to not only protect himself from the Japanese government but also make an uncomfortably public spectacle of any attempt to target him by outsiders.

For that matter, Yassen doubted that there were many intelligence agencies willing to target the man on home territory and Mikato knew that, too. He was too dangerous to make it worth it. If someone wanted him dead, they would target him elsewhere.

Hideo Mikato would not be an easy target but it would not be impossible. Flush him out of the house. Take out his car when he tried to leave. They would let it get a bit away, of course. Lure out Mikato himself if the first car was a decoy. Destroy it. Yassen did not need the man alive.

It would simply be a matter of timing. Mikato travelled frequently and he used one of his own people to handle such arrangements. Yassen would not have access to his itinerary.

It would take patience. Fortunately, Yassen had plenty of experience with that.

Mikato, Chase, Kurst. Chase was impossible for now. Mikato had signed his death sentence the moment he chose to stay. And Kurst … much against Yassen's will, Kurst would be Alex's responsibility. The only one with even a chance to get close enough to spot a weakness.

Yassen was well aware of just how risky that would be. Kurst had a brutal reputation for a reason. He made no attempt to hide, and to survive for two decades in that sort of position took … considerable skill on behalf of his security. Alex, at least, was aware of the risk as well; the only comfort that Yassen had. The Alex he had found in London would have been killed the moment Kurst got suspicious. After a year and a half of training … Alex had learned caution.

Yassen still did not like the risk Alex would have to run, but they had no other realistic choice. Dr Three had been – unfortunately – right. Kurst's security was too good. His only potential weakness was his lingering hatred for Hunter.

If this worked, if they all got out of it alive, Yassen's first course of action would be to get Alex Rider an appropriate security team. Maybe he couldn't protect the child now, but he could do his best to make up for it later.

Perhaps it was time to consider a change of career for Sagitta.

* * *

 _I'm on security detail tomorrow._

The message arrived three weeks into Yassen and Sagitta's reconnaissance mission. It was what they had been waiting for, Yassen and Dr Three and Alex; the moment Zeljan Kurst showed interest, because Alex would not have brought it up for anything short of that.

Yassen still felt a flash of concern; the knowledge that while Dr Three might be there, he did not particularly trust the man to keep Alex safe if anything happened. Alex would be on his own, and if their plan worked, if they managed to lure Kurst in, it would only get riskier later on.

Yassen could say none of that to Alex, though.

 _I expect you to remember your training and obey your instructions,_ he wrote, deliberately vague instead, and knew Alex would read between the lines.

 _Yes, sir._ _Sagitta?_

That attachment. Maybe Yassen should have worked harder to discourage it but it was part of what made Alex Rider who he was. Yassen wanted the child to survive but he had tried to let him keep as much of his own personality as he could.

 _They have performed their task to acceptable standards so far._

Yassen had no complaints. They were a competent team, used to long-term missions on their own, and patient hunters. They were exactly what Yassen needed now.

Alex's response came almost immediately. _Thank you._

* * *

Yassen did not pride himself on his professionalism. It was merely a fact; the result of events that took a lost, lonely teenager and turned him into one of the best assassins in the world. It had taken Hunter's betrayal and an almost-certainly lethal game of Russian roulette to turn Yassen into what he had become, and he took no real pride in it.

It had kept him alive, though, and now it was also the one thing that kept Yassen acting normal despite the knowledge that some four and a half thousand miles away, Alex Rider was going to be their bait to capture Kurst's interest.

Dr Three had sent a slightly longer message. He did not have to, Yassen was aware of that, but the doctor was big on politeness and it was simply good manners to keep Yassen updated. Alex was Yassen's second in command, after all.

 _I have taken the liberty of borrowing young Orion for security for a small meeting tomorrow._

 _He was trained in executive protection for a reason,_ Yassen had responded, a suitably callous response should someone else have seen it. _It will be educational for him._

Yassen did not need to know the details past that. He could make an educated guess. Dr Three and Zeljan Kurst had met to talk business over lunch on a number of occasions before. This time Kurst would simply have another motive to do so.

If Sagitta picked up on anything out of the ordinary, if they noticed that their boss was slightly more curt than usual, no one said a word about it. Too smart or not observant enough, Yassen did not know, nor did he care.

For now, Yassen would focus on Mikato's home. Yassen was used to waiting but even he knew that this time, the wait would be harsher than usual.

* * *

The message arrived that evening; four words that were all Yassen needed to know.

 _Security detail went well._

Yassen had waited for Alex's update and responded the instant he saw the message.

 _Well done, Alex._

The rest of the plan would be far riskier but for now, that first cautious step had gone well enough.

* * *

A/N: Mikato's full name (Hideo Mikato) is taken from _Alex Rider: Mission Files._ I've used Mikato as his surname, as he's referred to as 'Mr Mikato'. I think it's the only thing from the extras I've used, and in case of continuity issues, I've given the main books priority.

A/N 2: The next chapter will be in two weeks and review/PM replies might be slightly late until then as well, though it should be back on the regular schedule after that. I'm doing NaNoWriMo, so I'll be somewhat distracted until I finish it up.

Next: Somehow, surprise visitors aren't nearly as nice when they're SCORPIA's people.


	61. Hammer To Fall

A/N: The only way I could get this chapter to work was through two POVs. So yeah, a slight departure from the normal format. There was also really no place to break it up, so 9k it is.

* * *

Brendan Chase got the first nagging sense of doubt sometime after New Year. The nagging sense that something was off about the whole situation; finely honed instincts that had saved his life before, but he couldn't pinpoint what it was.

The nagging sense of wrongness remained, like the feeling of being watched by a sniper, and Brendan's patience got worn down at a slow, relentless pace as every lead, every suspicion came up empty.

Someone had given ASIS the intel on his home. Duval was the obvious suspect and yet …

And yet.

Something felt wrong. Duval had access to the same sort of intel as Brendan did, and the intel he possessed was far more valuable than merely the location of the home of one SCORPIA executive. SCORPIA had been targeted, sure, but very little compared to what they should have been, with a security leak of that magnitude.

Duval. The failed attack on Brendan himself and Gregorovich's operation in Africa, the only large-scale operation at that time.

Then nothing. Silence. A way to lure them into a false sense of security, maybe, but something told Brendan that this wasn't it. Had Duval turned on them, faked the whole thing? Brendan couldn't rule it out. If not for the attack on Gregorovich's operation, he would have suspected that Yu had set up contingency plans in case of his death; posthumous revenge on everyone who may have had reason to target him – and that list was long, indeed.

That was another thing. Yu. Kroll's death had been by Yu's hand and could be ignored, but Yu himself … the board had eventually written it off as an attack by one of Yu's own enemies, but now the doubts reappeared. Had Yu been the first of the attacks rather than Duval? Brendan had no way to know.

The feeling lingered. Still, life moved on. Brendan had secondary safe-houses but he needed to do something about security. Nile was an excellent second in command but he spent most of his time elsewhere. Perhaps it would be worth it to invest the additional time and effort in an operative or two that had yet to graduate. It had worked well enough for Kurst and Rothman, after all. Gregorovich as well. SCORPIA's operatives were loyal, but there was an additional level to it when a member of the executive board took a personal interest in their training.

Brendan had seen for himself the sort of ruthless loyalty that Nile possessed, Kurst's security detail was feared for a reason, and Orion was completely broken to Gregorovich's will, a deadly, obedient weapon at fifteen that would grown into a magnificent second in command should he live that long.

There was something to be said for that sort of return on investment.

He considered his options. Then he booked a first class ticket to Abu Dhabi.

* * *

Somehow over the weeks, Alex had become Gordon Ross' assistant teacher at Malagosto's shooting range. Alex wasn't exactly sure how but he didn't actually mind. He didn't like knives, he never had, but training with guns had eventually become something he enjoyed. The daily training helped on his skills – slowly but steadily – and he found that he genuinely didn't mind helping out. It had been one thing to teach Hanna Graff to shoot. She had started from scratch, had no natural instinct for the weapon, and she was visibly uneasy around guns as well. Most of Malagosto's students were trained professionals and those that weren't were at a minimum familiar with a variety of weapons. That made Alex's job much easier.

He did wonder briefly how Hanna was doing. Hanna and Johann both. Their mother had likely hidden them away somewhere well enough that Alex doubted anyone could find them, but he still wondered. Hanna knew who had ordered her father's death; Alex had seen that moment of understanding in her eyes the moment before she had viciously pushed the knowledge away again. And Johann … he wasn't stupid, either.

The family dynamics were probably well past dysfunctional and straight into crazy-town, wherever they were. Then again, Alex was the assistant teacher to a bunch of future assassins while acting as combined hostage and student to Dr Three. He really had no right to judge.

Life at Malagosto carried on. Calzaroni was back in class, somewhat worse for wear, and if he gave any thought at all to the fact that the student who had gone through the same course at the same time as him had failed, it didn't show. Jordan left for his graduation assignment. Grant and Moreno, the two new students, settled in.

And Alex waited. The quiet, unnerving wait that really had no good outcome, whatever happened. Either Kurst didn't take the bait and they would need to find another way to target him – and Alex believed Dr Three when he said that it would be close to impossible – or Kurst did fall for it, and Alex would find himself temporarily transferred to Kurst's command instead. Alone and exposed and desperately trying to find a weakness in Kurst's security so he wouldn't need to put Yassen or Sagitta in mortal danger.

Neither option was a good one. It didn't help that so long as Alex was supposed to act as bait, Yassen and Sagitta could not return. The moment Alex shifted back under Yassen's command, Kurst was likely to lose interest. Alex was interesting now because Yassen had left him with Dr Three, had given every indication that Alex was, when it came down to it, just property to him, and that left Alex vulnerable.

Zeljan Kurst would only be able to resist that temptation for so long, but it wouldn't work with Yassen there.

And then, in late January, Brendan Chase arrived. There was little prior warning, nothing but the time it took to drive from the airport and to the school. Even Dr Three looked mildly thoughtful when he interrupted Alex's most recent homework assignment.

"We are about to have guests," the man told Alex. "Brendan has taken an interest in some of our current students. A desire to increase his security, I believe."

Because Nile spent most of his time elsewhere to Alex's knowledge and it would be a waste to use someone of his skills solely as security.

"Your opinion?" Dr Three continued.

Another test. Alex was getting used to them. The man could turn most things into a learning experience or however he liked to think of them. Everything was an opportunity to analyse motivations and future actions.

Alex took a moment to gather his thoughts into something well-reasoned and concise as expected. It wasn't that the current group of students was unusual. No better or worse than any other class. That did not mean Chase wouldn't consider them a good investment, anyway.

"Kurst got part of his security detail from Malagosto," Alex finally said. "He took a visible interest in their education, which let him both influence their training to suit his needs and breed a stronger sense of loyalty in them. Rothman did the same with Nile. Chase has had a year to see the effects of that in Nile. After the attack, he doesn't just need additional security, he wants that loyalty, too. He'll focus on the best ones and have a direct hand in their training."

Dr Three nodded slightly. "Zeljan went so far as to leave one of his security people here as a mentor for his chosen students. Brendan will need Nile elsewhere, but he will likely visit on several occasions to ensure their training proceeds as expected."

Like they had done with Alex as well. Sure, Nile had been there to recover from his injuries, but that didn't mean he had any obligation to help Alex out. SCORPIA had assigned him as Alex's mentor, and Alex's guess was that it had been a combined test to see if he could manage without Yassen and a way to get Cossack back to work. Almost a year of practical work experience had left him with a whole new understanding of SCORPIA politics.

Alex considered the current students. If Chase wanted that gratitude and loyalty from his personal attention, he would want someone that wasn't about to graduate but still someone who had been there long enough to see their potential. He would definitely want some of the better ones, too, depending on what exactly he was looking for.

Dr Three didn't speak but waited patiently for Alex's conclusion.

"Zdeslav or Ignazio." Alex was almost sure of it. "Salina doesn't have the temperament for security detail, she belongs in the field. Everyone else is too close to graduation, too new to be sure of their potential, or not up to Chase's standards."

It was getting easier every time, trying to see the students from an outside point of view. They were still human, still _people_ , but Alex had a decent idea of what Chase would look for and how the students measured up to that.

Another nod from Dr Three told him he was right.

"Ignazio, most likely. Zdeslav has a bit too strong a touch of independence at times, though that can be rectified. Brendan may just focus on both of them. That small bit of unpredictability can work in his favour as well."

Unless Chase decided to just drug them and get the loyalty that way. Alex didn't say that out loud, though. Graff's drug wasn't that good. Not yet, anyway.

There was one more thing Alex needed to clear up, though, and he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"What role am I supposed to play, sir?"

They would have Chase within reach, with no idea of when they would next get that chance. He would have security of some sort, even just a bodyguard, but it was also Malagosto. Neutral territory. A school, not a battleground. Not the boardroom. He would have no reason to expect an attack of any sort. If his security was light enough … Alex could probably take him down, and Dr Three would know that.

The doctor seemed to consider the question, sharp eyes watching Alex all the while. Finally he spoke.

"Malagosto is a school," Dr Three said, echoing Alex's own thoughts. "A place of learning. Even if it had not been, we would need to coordinate the strikes or we could drive Zeljan and Mikato into hiding to such a degree that it would be entirely impossible to target them. They are difficult targets already. We do not wish to make it any more difficult. You will remain my student as well as security, primarily for me and as a secondary concern for the school."

Alex didn't make the relieved sound he wanted to, but he was sure the doctor knew, anyway.

"Yes, sir."

* * *

The man in question arrived an hour later with Nile as his silent shadow and a guard, assistant, whatever the man was along for company, a briefcase in one hand. There had been several other security people as well, Alex had noted, but they had remained with the car.

Dr Three greeted him outside, Alex some steps behind as _his_ silent shadow. Brendan Chase didn't look visibly armed, though Alex didn't doubt that he was, and probably had some sort of ballistic protection to boot. Nile, on the other hand, made no attempt to disguise the two short swords he carried, nor the several guns that Alex caught a glimpse of as he moved.

 _There is no trust in SCORPIA but what you make for yourself._

Not even on the executive board. Especially not on the executive board. Nile nodded slightly to Alex as Chase and Dr Three greeted each other. Alex responded with a nod as well, a bit of warmth unfurling in his chest. Nile was an enemy now; Chase's security and someone they would need to get past or work around to target the man himself, but Alex genuinely liked him.

D'Arc was there as well and for a while the conversation descended into sort of small-talk in SCORPIA terms; the general state of the school and the students and current world events. Pleasantries done, Dr Three and Chase retired to the doctor's building. Alex and Nile followed a bit behind, along with Chase's assistant.

"You are well?" Nile asked quietly but with genuine concern. "Unpleasant business in the Congo."

That warmth again, though overshadowed by guilt this time. "We were away when it happened. The attack on Mr Chase ..."

Alex trailed off. Nile got the question, anyway. "I was still in Lagos. The local difficulties took longer than expected to settle."

Alex had hoped that was the case but he'd had no way to know until after everything was said and done. Learning that Nile had survived had been a relief, even knowing he would be a threat to them now. Yassen hadn't cared, Yassen would probably have preferred Nile dead, but Alex had a problem with attachments and they both knew it.

They settled in Dr Three's office, Chase and the doctor seated by the small table like old friends. Alex and Nile took up careful guard positions by the wall, though Alex suspected Nile was a bit more on edge about it than Alex was. At least Alex was on familiar territory.

Matteo appeared to pour a cup of tea for the doctor then left again without a word spoken. Chase's assistant opened the briefcase and brought out several files and papers with notes, along with a glass bottle of water. Then he retreated to the side of the room, never speaking, either.

Alex wondered if it was a requirement or if Chase, like Dr Three, simply had the sort of presence that made people want to stay quiet and unnoticed.

He wasn't surprised that Chase brought his own drinks. Yassen would never have accepted anything from Dr Three, either, and on the tourist barge in Paris, it had become abundantly clear that none of the executive board trusted the rest not to try to poison everyone else. If someone were stupid enough to accept something, well, Alex suspected the general opinion would be that they had grown too naïve to live, anyway.

The conversation that followed was cold and callous. It was an eye-opening experience to listen in on Brendan Chase and Dr Three discuss the students that had caught Chase's attention, and not a particularly nice one, either. Alex had always known that the students were assets more than human beings to SCORPIA, judged on their skills and potential and the return on investment they offered. It had never been more clear to him than now.

"They both have another two months left until they will be ready for graduation," Dr Three said. "I expect both of them to pass resistance to interrogation without issues. Zdeslav has been trained for it in the past. Ignazio has had prior experience in other circumstances."

 _In other circumstances._ Alex had seen the files and that was a nice way to describe torture. He suppressed a shudder and wished he could ignore the conversation.

"Zdeslav is unusually independent." Chase didn't seem entirely happy with that, much like Dr Three had told Alex. SCORPIA didn't value strong independence in their operatives. Enough to adapt and get the job done. Not enough to get any overly clever ideas that they might decide to act on.

"Indeed. It may be valuable in some cases, however," Dr Three agreed. "And controllable through the right training."

Alex felt Chase's attention linger on him for several seconds. "True."

Kurst believed Yassen had beaten obedience and respect into Alex through brute force and violence. Alex wondered if Chase believed the same. He wouldn't be surprised, and he felt a brief flicker of sympathy for Zdeslav if Chase decided to go the same route. He probably wouldn't, though. There was still time to adjust their training before they graduated and Alex had always known his situation was unusual.

"I believe Oliver has high hopes for Grant as well, though I doubt he will be ready to graduate until summer. Oliver can be terribly optimistic at times."

Chase made a non-committal sound as he flipped through the files. "If he's still a student in a few months, he might be worth a look. Solid background, good preliminary evaluations," he admitted.

As he watched the two, Alex realised with a sudden chill just what Dr Three was doing. He wasn't sure how solid Dr Three's hold was on the couple of operatives in Kurst's security detail when it came down to it, but he imagined that if it was anything like the doctor himself believed, it was a strong one. Not strong enough to turn them against their boss, not the ones Kurst chose, but still strong. Now, with Dr Three's calm encouragement, Chase might end up with the same sort of compromised security. The original idea might have been Chase's own, but the doctor was definitely encouraging him. Would that be their eventual way to target Chase, wherever he eventually settled? Alex wouldn't be surprised.

"The records alone rarely give the full image," Dr Three agreed. "A personal impression can be far more valuable. The students are currently under the care of Yermalov, as they will remain for the next hour."

"Nile." Chase didn't need to expand on the order. Nile just nodded and left. A glance saw Chase's assistant follow as well, maybe to take notes. Alex knew it was one thing to see the students' results on the range in their file. Things like close combat was a bit harder to judge based on an evaluation alone. Nile would know what Chase looked for, though, and what he would need for his security detail. If they met with Nile's approval, Chase could take a closer look himself.

Alex looked at Dr Three, not sure if he should follow. Chase had just sent off his security. It seemed impolite for Alex to stick around if Nile didn't. He was surprised the man had been willing to let down his guard even that much, but like the doctor had said, this was a school. A place of learning. There had been no guards inside the boardroom, either, and Alex didn't doubt that Chase himself was armed.

"Stay." The order came from Chase, not Dr Three, but a slight nod got the doctor's agreement, too. "How long have you been here?"

Alex wasn't sure where Chase was going with the question, but he answered, anyway. "Since New Year, sir."

Chase glanced at the doctor. "I'm surprised Gregorovich was willing to leave his second in command behind for this long."

Dr Three smiled, a little fond. "He is a skilled operative, our Orion, but rather conspicuous for his age, and he is a bit of a target to several intelligence agencies. He is also still unfortunately squeamish about the finer aspects of interrogation. It was agreed that it would be educational for him to remain behind temporarily under my command. He has done quite well as an assistant professor for Gordon, and he provides a good example for the students."

Chase nodded. Turned his attention back to Alex. "Ignazio and Zdeslav. Your opinion?"

* * *

"They're solid operatives, sir," the boy replied immediately. "They'll be upper-tier ones if they survive their graduation. They're not up to Nile's standards but I don't think anyone really is. Zdeslav is a little more independent but they've both conducted themselves well in the exercises, they both know how to take orders, and they both have the temperament to work security rather than operations."

Clear and concise, far more trained soldier than fifteen-year-old schoolboy. Brendan suspected that Gregorovich had made it clear to Orion just what he expected and made sure the boy lived up to that. His assessment also agreed with the impression Brendan had received from the files, but it was nice to have it confirmed. Orion had spent most of January with the students. He would have a good idea of their potential.

Almost a full month at the school.

Something about it nagged in a way that Brendan couldn't quite pinpoint. Orion was – unsure around Dr Three. Brendan supposed he couldn't blame the boy; the doctor had an intimidating reputation for a reason. Still. Brendan had experience with the boy in Singapore and while almost a year of field experience could change people, there was a hesitation to the boy now that felt … off. The way he had waited for the doctor's approval before he had obeyed Brendan's order to stay. It could be explained by the fact that Gregorovich had left the boy in Dr Three's hands -

\- And that was something else. Gregorovich had gone against the full executive board while he was still merely an operative and spared the boy. For vengeance, perhaps, for the chance to turn Alex Rider into an obedient weapon in retaliation for Hunter's betrayal, but it was still against everything Brendan expected of the man to see him leave Orion behind. Gregorovich was skilled and could manage without him, but that wasn't the point.

The point was that Gregorovich had taken a large risk and spent a lot of time and effort on the boy's training, to mould him into exactly what he wanted, had trusted the boy with his safety -

\- And now, with SCORPIA under attack, he had left the boy at Malagosto. Of course Alex Rider was a target to intelligence agencies; all high-ranking operatives were, and certainly the second in command of a member of the executive board.

Kurst had mentioned that the doctor had used Orion for security during a business lunch. It was not that surprising, the boy had been trained for it, but if the fact that he was a highly conspicuous target was a concern, he should not have been let out of the school at all. There were intelligence agents in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, SCORPIA was well aware of that. Fewer now that the CIA had broken off their most recent operation, but Brendan wasn't fool enough to believe that was all. Dr Three had his own security detail; Orion's presence had not been required.

Showing off the boy? To what purpose, then? And was it done with Gregorovich's blessing? It would almost have to be. With the level of control Gregorovich had over Orion, the child would not obey orders that easily without his master's permission.

No one had anything to gain by using Orion as bait for the intelligence agencies. They knew about him already and there were far more valuable targets than one fifteen-year-old boy around, even one that was Gregorovich's second in command.

Which left -

\- Kurst.

Brendan let nothing show but glanced down at the files again as his mind worked fast to connect the dots. Orion was unsure, careful not to draw the doctor's displeasure. More than he should have been based on everything. He was Gregorovich's second in command and clear property. Dr Three had an intimidating reputation but Orion had Gregorovich's protection. Maybe he was under Dr Three's temporary command, but he was not a potential research subject the way most others around the doctor might be; he had that added protection and he had to know it.

Orion had been away from the client's home in the Congo during the attack; Orion and his favoured combat team both. Gregorovich hadn't been targeted at all. They believed it had been because his location had been unknown to Duval, unlike the client's, but if that wasn't the case …

Another memory dug itself to the front of Brendan's mind, almost forgotten. Yu had used Orion as security for two weeks; a way to test his suspicions about Howell's loyalties and to play his own petty games.

Yu had been assassinated five weeks later, opinions split on whether it had been an assassin hired by Kroll before his untimely demise or one of Yu's own enemies. Orion had been about to depart Baghdad at the time. Above suspicion.

Yu had taken a strong interest in Orion; Yu was dead. Kurst had taken a strong interest in Orion; the boy was now being used as bait for him. Duval … hadn't cared at all about the boy to Brendan's knowledge, but of the surviving members of the board, he was the easiest target if someone knew just where to find him and didn't care about the assets that would be lost with him. Duval's location was not common knowledge, but if someone _did_ know it _-_

\- And the doctor and Gregorovich both did, and Brendan knew it. Any of the executive board worth the position had solid files on their fellow board members.

The question now remained – Dr Three or Gregorovich? And what to do about it? Prior events said Gregorovich. Yu's assassination, the convenient way neither Orion nor his combat team were present during the attack, the lack of an attack on Gregorovich himself. Watching Orion around Dr Three, however … He was cautious. Careful. Respectful; as respectful as he had been on _Le Débiteur_ in Paris.

Orion did not act like a student with a respected teacher; he acted like a hostage.

Gregorovich had gone to see the doctor at Malagosto after the debriefing. Brendan had paid little attention to that, but now …

Gregorovich met with Dr Three right after the attack. Left his second in command – acting more like a hostage than a student – with the man before he went to track down any leads on the attacks. The same boy he had defied the executive board for.

… Gregorovich had been behind it, then. The last pieces clicked into place in Brendan's mind. Something about the attack or the debriefing had tipped Dr Three off, and he had deemed Gregorovich's plans, whatever they were, solid enough to arrange for an uneasy alliance. Orion was insurance while Gregorovich was off, not hunting down any sign of the attackers but likely continuing those plans. Kurst was hunting, Brendan himself had yet to settle down again, which left Mikato as the likely target.

Brendan gave no sign at all of his thoughts but remained focused on the files and kept his breathing slow and steady. Malagosto had just become hostile territory, and his security was – elsewhere. Still alive, he presumed, since Orion would have had plenty of opportunity to attack if they had intended to target him.

Brendan was armed and did wear a shirt made of ballistic fabric, but he would still feel much better with Nile at his back. Course of action, then. Retrieve Nile. Leave. Figure out exactly how to handle this development. Executive board politics were ever shifting, ever changing. Gregorovich had become a threat, as had the doctor. They would need to be removed. Allied with Kurst and Mikato … it was doable.

First he had to extract himself from the situation, though. Without drawing the doctor's suspicions. Dr Three on his own was harmless, but Brendan was perfectly well aware that fifteen or not, Orion was a lethal weapon and trained to obey without question. He did not care for his chances against that. Nile was better, but Nile was also well out of reach for now.

"I want to see the students myself," Brendan finally said.

"Of course," Dr Three agreed.

Brendan forced himself to keep a calm pace and keep up the small-talk as they headed to the training ground, keenly aware of Orion's silent presence a few steps behind. The boy had been … a curiosity and a marvel for his age, Brendan supposed, the first time he had seen the child in person. Now the boy had become a lethal threat.

Brendan Chase had underestimated him. Perhaps they all had, save for Dr Three and Gregorovich himself. A well-trained killer, but only safe for those who held his leash, and right now Brendan was not one of them. The idea of Yassen Gregorovich finally accepting an apprentice had been full of potential; a suitable successor to the best assassin SCORPIA ever trained. The reality was quite different when that same apprentice was a potential enemy.

Malagosto had always been reasonably safe territory. First the island itself, now the new compound. It had always been Dr Three's haunt, an easy source of subjects for his research, but the responsibility for the school had also been shared with Julia Rothman in Venice. Now … in retrospect, perhaps they should have paid more attention. They had been too focused on their own operations, their own games, and had only been too happy to leave the move of the school in Dr Three's hands.

The current class was outside. Brendan spotted Yermalov immediately, moving among his students and correcting them sharply. He spotted Nile a second later, a distinct figure a bit to one side as he watched the class. His assistant was there as well, watching as sharply as Nile did.

And, Brendan noticed, another sign that they should have kept a closer eye on things – Crux was next to Nile, the two of them conversing in what looked like low tones.

Brendan Chase had paid little attention when Dr Three had reassigned Crux to Malagosto. The police in Singapore was still so very persistent and she had shown an interest in eventual retirement from field work, though not retirement from SCORPIA itself. It had been an annoying loss of a talented operative that Brendan had made good use of before, but Dr Three's reasons had made perfect sense. They would need an instructor at the school, and she had ample experience with the subject.

Now, watching Nile and Crux converse like old acquaintances, he recognised with cold, stark clarity just how power they had allowed the doctor to accumulate.

It was a second of tension that showed before he could stop it, a minute shift of muscles, nothing more.

But it was enough.

* * *

Only a month of watching Dr Three – his moods and body language and the slightest change in his mannerism – let Alex catch what happened next.

He didn't see whatever made Dr Three react. But he saw the shift in the doctor's usual urbane self, the movements that went from calm and measured to sharp and lethal in the blink of an eye. Alex reacted instantly and reached for his gun, just in time to see Chase do the same -

\- And, that same instant, the gun in Dr Three's hand as he fired at point blank range at Chase.

Dr Three was past sixty. He did not train regularly at the range to Alex's knowledge. He spent most of his time on research or his operations. In that instant, Alex understood how the man had survived for so long, and the sort of person he had been once, fifteen years ago when Yassen had gone through Malagosto himself.

Shock and the sheer speed of what had happened were the only reasons Alex didn't flinch, his brain not yet caught up with everything. Months of Yassen's training kicked in, categorised the people around him, assessed the threats, focused on the biggest one -

\- But before Nile could do anything, before he could focus on his most likely target, before he could finish the motion and target the doctor, a single, sharp word cut through the air.

" _Nile._ " Dr Three's voice was hard in a way Alex had never heard before; an immediate demand for obedience that made Nile freeze instinctively. He wasn't the only one, either. It had been Nile's name but the tone of voice had Alex freeze, too -

 _\- Memories of water, of pain, of drowning; of no air and black spots in his vision and he was **dying** -_

\- and he saw the same now in Crux. The perfect stillness of someone in the presence of a man they _knew_ would kill them without a second thought, and do it slowly and meticulously, too. Maybe Dr Three's focus wasn't on them, but they had both learned to fear him.

For all of Crux's disturbing hobbies, for her admiration of the doctor, she still responded as instantly as Nile and Alex did – and, Alex noted, so did Calzaroni, who had passed resistance to interrogation as well.

Nile didn't move for long seconds. He barely even breathed. Then he swallowed and lowered the gun.

The most unsure Alex had ever seen Nile, and only a year of SCORPIA politics let him understand why. Dr Three had just killed another member of the board in cold blood. By any logic and common sense, he should kill Nile as well to avoid the threat of retaliation. The executive board would have shot Alex if they had decided against Yassen's promotion without a moment of hesitation and they would have done it for the same reason.

Nile had still lowered his gun. In part because of Dr Three's order but also, Alex suspected, because he didn't have a choice. Nile wasn't suicidal. Maybe he could have shot Dr Three in retaliation, but both Alex and Crux had weapons aimed at him by now. The students knew better than to interfere, and Professor Yermalov hadn't even flinched. Targeting Dr Three would be certain death. Obeying left a chance of survival.

Dr Three nodded slightly.

"Crux." The doctor's voice was calm and clear. "Put the school in lockdown, dispose of Brendan's security detail, then find Oliver and bring him to my office. I have matters I wish to discuss with him."

Crux nodded once and left.

Alex never lowered his gun, acutely aware that he had just been put in charge of Dr Three's safety and on shakier grounds than he had been in a long time. This wasn't the Dr Three he had become used to. This was the man who had survived two decades as a member of SCORPIA's executive board, and Alex had no idea of what to expect. By all accounts, Dr Three shouldn't even have survived Nile's retaliation, much less felt comfortable enough to make do with only a teenage boy for security. It was a credit to his control of the place, of the truth of his words to Yassen, that he did not even hesitate to turn his back on Nile.

Cold eyes watched Chase's assistant, the man utterly still as well. Neither moved for long seconds. Then Dr Three's attention continued on to the students, and Alex understood with a chill that the man would write off an entire class as an acceptable loss if he decided they weren't trustworthy. If his grip on them wasn't strong enough.

Alex almost opened his mouth to argue for them. Stopped himself before he could. This wasn't Yassen, who would put up with his morals. This wasn't even the Dr Three that had put Alex through two weeks of RTI. This was someone far more ruthless and he knew without being told that any attempt to interfere would see him punished. He would survive, the agreement with Yassen guaranteed that, but Alex knew he would wish otherwise by the end of it.

Only Calzaroni seemed to understand the seriousness of the situation, a faint paleness underneath his tan. The rest were clearly wary, on edge, but it didn't seem to have quite sunk in yet just how ruthless SCORPIA's executive board could be. How little a few more lives really mattered.

Then Dr Three's attention shifted to Professor Yermalov. "Classes may be somewhat more restrictive for a while. I trust you will impress the seriousness of the situation upon them."

Yermalov nodded once, curtly, and sent his class away with a sharp order, following behind as well.

Matteo appeared, two of Malagosto's guards with him. Used to the doctor, he didn't even blink at the sight of Chase's body on the ground.

"See to clean-up," Dr Three ordered. "Make sure no one can identify the body. We want no evidence. Put his assistant in house arrest. Orion, Nile, with me."

The doctor didn't ask about Chase's security people. He had given Crux an order and expected to have it obeyed. Chase's people would be dead. Crux knew better than to fail; they all did.

The walk passed in silence, heavy and uncomfortable to Alex. Whatever was going on in Nile's mind, he was as silent and graceful as always.

Oliver d'Arc waited inside Dr Three's building and straightened at the sight of the man. The doctor vanished into his office with d'Arc, Crux a silent shadow at his side. A small gesture saw Alex and Nile wait outside.

Silence settled. Alex realised he still had his gun in his hand. Hesitated for a second before he put it away. Dr Three seemed to have things under control. If not, it wasn't like Nile didn't still outclass Alex, and he didn't want to take the shot. He hadn't thought about it earlier, running on shock and adrenaline and training. Now … he had seen a man shot less than four feet away from him, had seen Dr Three decide between one heartbeat and the next that Brendan Chase needed to die and to carry it out without a drop of emotion, and that harsh, initial rush of adrenaline was fading fast.

It was too much of a reminder that Dr Three could have done the same to Alex at any moment if he had decided the agreement had become a liability, and that would have been the best-case scenario. The doctor liked his research, but he had always been … kind to Alex. And sure, Alex had done his best to be respectful and follow orders and do nothing that could make the doctor change his mind, but it had been easy to forget just what the man was capable of. Alex had never been confronted with it. Not to that extent.

He could hear nothing from the doctor's office, the door soundproof like the rest of the building. He could hear nothing from the outside. Just the stillness of the room and his own heartbeat and steady breathing.

Nile glanced over. Seemed to consider things, then crossed the room in a few, soundless steps and met Alex's eyes. Alex was a little surprised to discover they were the same height by now. He hadn't realised it in Lagos. He was five ten now? Five eleven? It was somewhere in his medical record but he couldn't focus enough to remember right now.

"Not being armed in the presence of an enemy is a beginner's mistake." There was something in Nile's voice but Alex wasn't sure what it was.

"I know," Alex replied. He liked to think that maybe there had been a little bit of defiance in the words. Mostly, though, he just sounded tired and rattled. Maybe Nile was an enemy. Right now Alex's didn't care.

Something in Nile's expression softened fractionally as he took in Alex's appearance.

"It's easy to forget how young you are."

Up close, Alex realised how easily he could have said the same about Nile. He never thought about it; Nile was _Nile_ the same way Yassen was _Yassen_ , and age seemed like something that happened to other people.

Nile was … in his early twenties? He wasn't twenty-five yet, Alex was sure of that. He had spent almost a year as Chase's second in command and … a year as Rothman's? Around that long, Alex suspected. And he had been a year out of Malagosto when Rothman had claimed him, Yassen had said as much. Nile had been around twenty when he went through Malagosto. Maybe even younger. One of Alex's classmates had been twenty, but he also hadn't had the raw potential Nile must have shown even then to draw Rothman's attention. Even if Nile had been the second-best in his class.

But Nile was young. Not as young as Alex, but he had still only been maybe twenty-one when he got tangled up in the lethal politics of SCORPIA's executive board, and he had survived it for two years so far. Rothman had frequently replaced her second in command, Dr Three had said. Had Nile known that? Had he just been that sure of his own skill? Or had he just known better to refuse, even if he hadn't wanted the position?

And now … the fact that Nile was still alive was a good sign and Alex knew it, but that didn't change the fact that Nile's life hung by a thread. Dr Three could easily change his mind, and Nile had to know it.

Alex looked away first, a tremor in his hands that he couldn't quite hide.

Was that what Yassen expected of him? That complete calm and utterly unreadable expression that Nile showed? If Nile cared at all that Chase had been shot beyond the risk it posed to himself, Alex couldn't tell. Nile was loyal. That was all SCORPIA cared about. In any other case, Nile would have handled Chase's attacker. In this case, he had allowed himself to let down his guard just slightly, to believe, like Chase obviously had, that Malagosto was safe.

How had Dr Three known? What had he seen? There had to have been something; Chase's death would cause too many problems with their plan to choose that course of action unless there was no other choice.

Neither spoke. The silence carried on. Two of Malagosto's guards appeared to stand watch by the office door. It could have been ten minutes or half an hour later by the time the door opened again and d'Arc reappeared.

He looked a little paler than usual to Alex's eye, a little more tense. A little less like the harmless principal and more like the trained assassin he actually was, however out of practice he might be. But then, Alex had no way to tell. He would have been willing to swear Dr Three never spent time at the shooting range, either, but he had still managed to draw his gun and shoot in the time it took Nile to realise something was wrong. Alex could easily be wrong about d'Arc, too.

The man ignored both of them as he left. Crux appeared in the doorway and nodded at them in a silent order. Alex felt his anxiety return, a cold grip around his chest. By the time they entered the room, Crux waited silently by Dr Three's side again.

The two guards remained outside but closed the door behind them. Alex felt claustrophobia set in; the office was large and light but he could still feel the walls press in on him. A slight gesture summoned Alex to Dr Three's side, though the man didn't talk to him. Only then did Alex notice that Dr Three's laptop had a video feed running and that Yassen, wherever he was, was on the other end of the connection. Somewhere outdoor and forest-y was all Alex could tell from the image. Yassen was in outdoor clothes as well.

Yassen didn't greet him but Alex knew he had seen him, the slight flicker of Yassen's eyes as they focused on Alex's image on his side of the connection. It was enough to ease the anxiety, if just a little.

Nile looked remarkably calm. Much calmer than Alex could have managed in that situation. Not relaxed, but not as tense as Alex would have been, either.

"I hope you're right about d'Arc," Yassen spoke, apparently continuing a conversation that had started before Alex and Nile arrived. "He may have done an excellent job with the school but he was always slippery."

Calm warning and threat both, like Alex had come to expect from Yassen. Did Dr Three's control extend to d'Arc as well? He had gone through the school himself before those classes became part of the curriculum, after all.

Dr Three seemed to think so, because he looked utterly unconcerned. "Oliver is a sensible man. He understands his position. Should he prove a potential problem later on, Eijit would be a capable successor."

Yassen seemed to accept it, not that he had much other choice. "How long can we cover up Chase's death?"

Dr Three glanced at Nile. "That depends entirely on his second in command, I think. With Nile's assistance … a week or two, perhaps. Not indefinite but long enough."

Because a good second in command, a sufficiently trusted one, could act on their master's behalf, Alex realised. Maybe Alex himself wasn't trained enough to take over entirely for Yassen if needed, but Nile might very well know enough to keep up appearances for a short while. So long as no one insisted on a meeting in person. He had worked for Chase for a year. Alex had been with Yassen for longer, but most of that had been training and assignments, not as his second in command. Maybe Nile was alive right now because he had obeyed Dr Three's command, but his future survival was by no means guaranteed. If he helped keep up that cover, it could go a long way in changing that.

Nile seemed to understand the precarious situation he was in, because he stood very still and his attention never left Dr Three. How much of the plan he had worked out, Alex didn't know, but he knew to step carefully.

"Nile?" Dr Three's voice was calm, almost friendly.

"Two weeks, sir," Nile responded to the unspoken question. "There are few left on the executive board, and if both yourself and Mr Gregorovich are aware of the truth, Mr Mikato and Mr Kurst remain the only large threats of exposure. Mr Chase had nothing to do with their subordinates. If necessary, I have been the one they deal with with, but most of Mr Mikato and Mr Kurst's business doesn't overlap with Mr Chase's."

There was no hesitation, no questions. Nile knew or had guessed enough, or he knew better than to ask. It wasn't like it mattered. Alex wasn't sure if he could have kept his own curiosity in check, but Nile was older and far more used to SCORPIA's way of doing things. It didn't matter if he understood the hows and whys. It _shouldn't_ matter. All he had to do was follow orders. With Brendan Chase dead, his life was in Dr Three's hands.

The doctor nodded slightly. Alex knew him well enough to tell that he was pleased with the reply. "Long enough, then. I will need to encourage Zeljan's interest, but that is a minor issue."

 _Minor issue._ Alex thought of Kurst, of the malicious glint in his eyes, and suppressed a shudder. He didn't doubt Dr Three would know just how to make Kurst take the bait.

Only long months with Yassen let Alex see the displeasure in his eyes as well, there an instant and gone the next. Yassen worried, and something in Alex's chest unfurled a little, warm and welcome. He was still alone, surrounded by potential enemies and lethal politics, but he still had Yassen.

"Two weeks, then," Yassen agreed.

"Excellent." Dr Three's attention shifted briefly to Alex. "Dismissed, Orion."

"Yes, sir." Alex's voice was quiet but steadier than he could have hoped for. He thought he understood the reasons, too. Dr Three undoubtedly had things to discuss with Nile, a desire to make sure he would, in fact, be loyal. And Alex was squeamish. He had been there just long enough to let Yassen seen for himself that Alex was still all right. He was not needed past that, and Alex was perfectly fine with that.

Alex slipped out of the office, footsteps silent against the floor. The two guards ignored him.

Mostly on autopilot, Alex settled into a soft chair and just sat there for a while in the silence. The students would be … somewhere. He wasn't sure where and didn't want company, anyway. The teachers … d'Arc probably took care of that. He felt tired. Drained. It wasn't that far past noon, but he felt like he had run a marathon.

Would Yermalov's personal little daily torture session for Alex be cancelled? Alex wasn't sure of that, either. He supposed that depended on the students and how much the man would have to deal with.

He could go back to his room but he couldn't afford to make a wrong move around the doctor now and he didn't really want to move, either. Two weeks, then. Two weeks at the most before the likelihood that Kurst or Mikato caught on to the deception was too big to ignore. Chase's death, even if they blamed it on outsiders, would be enough to drive both of them into hiding; possibly well enough that even Yassen couldn't get to Mikato. And Kurst … by that point his paranoia was likely to overrule his desire for revenge.

Two weeks to figure out a way to target Kurst. Two weeks to find a weakness in his security, and that was counting the time it would take Dr Three to manipulate the man into focusing on Alex again.

Dr Three and Yassen seemed to think it could be done. Alex wished he had their confidence in his skills.

He sat there for a long time in the silence before the door opened again to let out the three people inside. Part of Alex was relieved to see Nile. He had doubted Dr Three would kill him, not now, not when he was useful and willing to help, but it was still a relief.

Another use for Graff's drug, Alex's mind added, insidious and unhelpful. For now it took too long to work to be of use in an emergency like this, but a faster-working drug would have been perfect. Faster-working and something that allowed a little more independent thought. A way to guarantee Nile's cooperation for the weeks or months required, and afterwards … well, Dr Three didn't necessarily need him alive after his usefulness had run out.

The doctor had to trust Nile would follow orders now or he wouldn't have let him live. Maybe that would keep Nile alive down the line as well, if he proved trustworthy now. Alex hoped so.

Something must have shown because Nile gave him a faint smile before he vanished outside. More tense than usual and a little pale, like d'Arc had been, but alive.

"I will emphasise the seriousness of the situation to our students. A suitable reminder will compliment Professor Yermalov's lesson well," Crux told Dr Three.

The man nodded. "A good approach. Some learn best through theory. Some favour a more practical approach. Do ensure they all learn. It would be a significant financial loss to write off an entire class."

A slight nod and Crux was gone, too, and Alex was alone with the two guards and Dr Three.

"You did well today," the doctor said.

Alex figured he hadn't really done anything. Dr Three had handled all of it. Alex had just … been there. Did not turning into a wreck at seeing someone shot in front of him count as 'did well'? In that case, Alex could do without the praise. Did obeying orders count? He didn't know.

"Thank you, sir." That seemed like the safe response.

"You did not panic. You did perhaps not react as fast as some would, but you had no prior warning and no reason to believe this place would not be safe. Consider it a useful reminder that there is no such thing as a safe place once your life and death becomes valuable enough to others. You did as well as you could. You are still only fifteen, Orion. You will learn in time."

Alex was kind of afraid that would be the case. He wasn't about to say that out loud, though.

Dr Three watched him as the seconds stretched on. Alex wasn't sure what he was looking for but eventually the man nodded slowly. "Take the rest of the day off. Consider what I have told you. Dismissed."

His room would be quiet and he would be entirely alone with his thoughts, but it would still be better than the alternatives. He couldn't write to Yassen, not with any sort of detail without running an unacceptable risk, but he would be left alone, at least. Get the time to deal with everything.

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed.

Dr Three smiled. Kindly.

Alex still heard the echoes of Nile's name in his mind, still looked at the small, unassuming man and remembered his weeks of RTI. But then, Dr Three probably knew that, too.

* * *

Next: Some things fall into place and Alex really doesn't feel like celebrating that at all.


	62. Pompeii, part I

A/N: As always, thank you for reading, and for your reviews :) They're always appreciated!

* * *

The general mood at Malagosto was … slightly on edge, Alex supposed was the best description. Not tense, not really, just … a bit on edge. Security had increased and the students were all unusually respectful – Alex was back to 'sir', for one, and he knew better than to even try to convince them otherwise for now – but beyond that life went on. The students had very clearly just had a harsh lesson about the facts of life and had just as clearly taken it to heart, but life carried on as always for the most part. Classes continued. Homework remained the same. Calzaroni approached his graduation assignment, though Alex suspected that one might be delayed a week or two as a precaution. They were still allowed to visit the Countess for lessons, though now that was accompanied by guards.

The students still got their weekly half-day off, though they had been restricted to staying on school grounds, which was really no different from the conditions Alex had to live with. Letting him leave with Kurst would be different; four words – _Gregorovich is a traitor –_ would be enough to see Alex killed immediately. Letting Alex leave the school on his own for hours with no one to keep an eye on him … that was something else entirely. Alex wasn't really considered a risk or Dr Three would have put a lot more restrictions on him, but the doctor was still a cautious man.

He did suspect that all communication was under surveillance to a much harsher degree than it had been before. With security increased and Dr Three's order to put the school in lockdown, that only made sense. Life carried on but no one wanted Kurst or Mikato to hear any unfortunate rumours. None of the guards or students or staff had mysteriously vanished, so Alex supposed Dr Three hadn't found a reason to consider any of them a risk, but that could easily change.

Nile did not stay at the school. He had a role to play, appearances to keep up, and Dr Three obviously trusted his hold on the man enough to allow it. Alex wondered briefly what sort of hold the doctor had on someone like Nile but decided pretty fast he didn't want to know.

Whatever Dr Three had done to _encourage_ Kurst's interest, it had worked. Four days after Chase's death – murder, because Alex was going to call it what it was – the doctor appeared and looked distinctly pleased about something. It wasn't obvious but Alex had learned to read him at least a little.

"Zeljan has enquired about borrowing you for an assignment in Russia for a week or so. SCORPIA has found a promising customer and you speak the language fluently. He will have his bodyguard, of course, and a military escort, but his second in command and the rest of his usual security detail have been sent off in advance to prepare for the meeting. Your skills will make for a suitable temporary replacement for the travel there, and you have the skills to serve as his personal assistant for the duration of it. It is a convenient excuse, nothing more, but enough to pretend it is a legitimate request. I made him aware that young Yassen had plans to retrieve you soon. It was enough to make him act. We will find no better opportunity than this."

Long days of restless anxiety came to a screeching halt. Alex felt his pulse kick up and the grip of fear that settled around his chest and _pulled_. Suddenly the wait didn't seem so bad anymore. Like with his resistance to interrogation course, the reality of it was far worse. He had known it would come. He had known time was running out fast. It still didn't make it any easier.

An assignment in Russia. With Zeljan Kurst. For a week. Of course part of Alex had known that to find a way to target Kurst, they would need more than a few hours of observation. It hadn't really sunk in until just now.

This was what they wanted. This was what Alex was at the school for. Still, all he could think of was the look in Kurst's eyes as he held Alex by his chin with the promise of violence right beneath the surface.

He had no choice, though. If the alternative was Yassen or Sagitta …

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed and felt that unnatural, resigned calm settle. "When?"

"You depart tomorrow morning."

At least he wouldn't spend days waiting restlessly as his anxiety just got worse with every hour. Time was money for SCORPIA and too long of a notice carried risks of its own, too. Kurst would know that. For the same reason Alex also knew better than to ask exactly where in Russia he was going. He wouldn't be told that in advance, either.

Alex just nodded. There wasn't much else he could do.

"Carry out the job you were trained to do and you will be physically safe," Dr Three continued and probably meant it reassuringly. "For all that Yassen is elsewhere, you remain his property and retain the implicit protection of such. Be respectful, obey your orders, and do not test him, and you will be physically unharmed."

 _Be respectful. Obey. Never argue._

The words came back to Alex in a flood of memories. He hadn't thought about them in a while but he heard them echoed now in Dr Three's instructions, almost word for word. Was that where Yassen had first heard them? Or did it go back even further, all the way back to Alex's own father?

Alex didn't particularly want to be _anyone's_ property but he also remembered the contract he had signed, and that said pretty much the same even if it used a lot more words to do it. He supposed the only good thing was that Kurst couldn't target him without a good reason. The fear that Kurst would use Graff's drug on him had been a recurring nightmare but hopefully the threat of Yassen would keep him safe.

Physically, anyway. Dr Three's emphasis on that word didn't escape Alex's notice.

"Physically safe," Alex repeated and couldn't keep the doubt from his voice.

"You are a living reminder of Hunter's betrayal," Dr Three replied, quite calmly. "Zeljan was always one to nurse his grudges. He will savour the thought of having Hunter's only child at his beck and call. He is aware of your dislike for the harsher methods we sometimes employ. Do not be surprised if he finds an excuse to test your skills within my field. If you succeed, he will know you did so against your will. If you fail, he will have an excuse to punish you. Do try not to give him such a reason. He will test you. He will wish to see you broken to his will. He was once the head of the Yugoslav police force, as I'm certain Yassen's file mentioned. He quite enjoyed seeing the expression in the prisoners' eyes the moment before he executed them. He found it rather interesting, the broad range of emotions the human mind is capable of. The difference in reactions in each prisoner. He had little interest in the torture or interrogation that might come before, but the final emotions were always a curiosity to him. He will not be in a position to kill you without drawing unwanted retaliation from Yassen, far more than a brief moment of satisfaction would be worth, but he would enjoy to see you put between impossible choices and watch the struggle in your eyes. It will be in your own best interest to play along and give him the reaction he desires."

Right. _That_ was reassuring. Alex felt nausea settle and the taste of bile in his mouth. That was the man he was supposed to spend a week or more with? Isolated in Russia with someone who would delight in any emotion he could draw from Alex. Malagosto taught them that emotions were a weakness that could get them killed, that all that mattered were their orders, but Alex had never been the best of students when it came to that and Kurst knew it, too. Alex had proven that the moment he had taken full responsibility of the Santa Catarina incident to protect Marcus and the rest of Sagitta.

Alex Rider got attached and Kurst knew it. Alex Rider was fifteen; emotional and impulsive and fragile despite all of his training, and Kurst knew that, too.

It would not be a nice trip, Alex knew that with cold, hard clarity. Physically unharmed, sure. He didn't want to know his mental state by the end of it.

He had to focus on his job. Find a weakness. Remember that Kurst's vindictive little plan for revenge would eventually bring him down as well. So long as Alex focused and did his job well enough.

"Thank you," Alex said and meant it. He had known some of it on some level but it was different to hear it out loud. Dr Three didn't have to take the time to explain but he had, anyway, and Alex appreciated it. He knew the stakes a lot better now. Knew just what he might face.

 _Do try not to give him such a reason,_ Dr Three had said. Alex couldn't promise that, but he would do his best and bear the consequences if he couldn't. At least he had been warned now. It wouldn't blindside him. It might not change the fact that he wouldn't be able to torture someone, but at least he would be prepared to refuse.

"Do try your best, Orion," the doctor said. "We have quite high hopes for you. Prove us right."

Easier said than done. Alex nodded, anyway. "Yes, sir."

There wasn't much else he could say to that. Just accept that there was nothing he could do and wait for the countdown to come to an end.

* * *

 _I'll be away for a while. I've been sent on an assignment,_ Alex wrote, as deliberately vague as always.

 _The good doctor mentioned as much,_ Yassen replied and confirmed Alex's suspicion that the two exchanged at least some amount of information. _I expect you to live up to the standards I hold you to._

That was a very polite way to tell Alex to find Kurst's weakness and do it well enough to match Yassen's expectations. It was not what an outsider would read, of course, but Alex got the meaning well enough.

 _Yes, sir._

There were no wishes of good luck or reminders to be careful. There didn't need to be. Alex knew and Yassen didn't want to risk it. The brief, few words were enough.

* * *

A white Mercedes picked Alex up at Malagosto early the following morning. He had very little luggage to speak of. Weapons and some clothes. His destination was Russia in early February. He would need good, durable winter clothes and had already been told that several of SCORPIA's winter uniforms had been packed for him.

The plane was an Antonov An-124 Ruslan, familiar to Alex from his assignment in the Congo, and it was mostly empty. It wasn't the most comfortable of planes, meant for cargo more than people, but it was decent enough. The crew was Russian, like Alex's crew had been, but beyond them there were few people on board. Just Alex and a couple of guards. He assumed Kurst and his people would already be there when they arrived.

He did take the chance to change into warmer clothes before they landed. He didn't know where they were going exactly, but the trip took around five hours. That ruled out a good part of Russia, at least, for all the good that did. It hadn't helped much to look out the window and there were no helpful signs of any sort at the remote runway they finally approached.

It was cold when they landed and downright frigid for someone like Alex, who was used to much warmer climates. He had been used to it during the stay in Yassen's cabin. This was no worse. In fact, it could very well be slightly warmer, for all that it didn't feel like it. The ground was still covered in snow and the sole runway had carefully been cleared to allow the Antonov to land.

Alex was suddenly extremely grateful for his winter uniform. It was much warmer and bulkier than the one he had been used to on Santa Catarina, of course, but it was perfect now. Black like he had expected except for the grey scorpions on the sleeves and above his heart – no one had bothered with snow camo for the design, though Alex was sure SCORPIA had those as well – and clearly meant for intimidation purposes. The boots fit perfectly. He wasn't even surprised.

Several military vehicles already waited for them along with a small group of uniformed people. A bit further away, several lorries were parked. It didn't take long to move what little cargo they had to the cars – large, heavy, anonymous-looking, but clearly meant to take a beating and handle the weather – and they were on their way less than half an hour later. Behind them, the crew of the Antonov had already started to load whatever cargo the lorries had brought.

They passed no real sign of civilization beyond a few roads. If there were any towns nearby, their small convoy avoided them. The snow also hadn't been cleared, though Alex was used to that from Yassen's cabin as well.

His curiosity as he stared out the window must have shown, because the soldier closest to Alex leaned over and raised his voice a little to be heard over the engine and general noise from the car.

" _SCORPIA has a base nearby_ ," he explained in Russian, a little different from the dialect Alex was used to but perfectly understandable. No one had asked if he spoke Russian. Either they assumed he did, or it wasn't their problem. " _No unwanted questions._ "

Alex couldn't claim to be surprised by that, either. He was sure that nobody ever mentioned SCORPIA by name – they probably had a nice cover for that base – but it wasn't the first base like that he had visited. Adams and Jarek had spent part of their recovery at one in the Middle East, and that one had officially belonged to a security company. Alex was sure they had their ways to keep this one under the radar as well. He couldn't imagine they got a lot of visitors, anyway. The snowy landscape seemed to go on forever and only solid cars built for that sort of place meant they stood a chance of actually getting anywhere. Alex could feel the raw power from the engine, but it had clearly been intended for endurance and strength rather than speed.

In the end, it took nearly two hours to reach the base and it was getting close to sunset. Alex was probably more relieved than he should be to see the place. He really didn't fancy driving around in snow in total darkness and while he was sure the drivers were used to it, he doubted they wanted to, either.

It looked like any other military base to Alex, though he didn't have that much experience with them. Heavy fences, armed, gruff guards, subtle security measures all around, and the majority of the place hidden by tall pine trees until they turned around a corner and the rest of the place came into view. Nothing about it screamed SCORPIA. Then again, neither had anything about the one in the Middle East.

The small convoy came to a halt in front of the main entrance. Alex got out, bag slung over his shoulder. Someone appeared at the door. It took Alex a few moments to recognise him as Kurst's personal bodyguard, though in his defence, the last time he had seen the man he had been in a nice suit and not cold-weather uniform.

" _Orion,"_ he greeted in Russian as well. There was a slight accent to it but not much.

Alex responded in the same language, deliberately respectful. _"Sir."_

The man watched him for long moments. Then he nodded. _"Koval,_ " he said. _"Mr Kurst is waiting."_

Alex felt like he had passed some test or another. He probably had, knowing SCORPIA. Yassen's file hadn't mentioned the man's name. Alex doubted it was his real one but it was something to call him. It wasn't like everyone else around Alex didn't already use fake names, anyway.

The interior of the base was much warmer. Just getting out of the harsh wind was a relief, even with the uniform. Alex really wasn't used to cold temperatures anymore. Zermatt had been bad enough. It wasn't _warm_ inside, not by a long shot – the fact that everyone wore decently warm clothes even indoor could attest to that – but it was much more comfortable and Alex could feel the heat of his uniform set in.

Koval guided him along the corridors to a nicer, separate building where the floor went from hard concrete and to an actual rug and the few doors were made from nice, high-quality wood as well. Alex had drawn a few looks on the way but nothing he wasn't used to by now. He was still very obviously just a young teenager. Even those that knew about him still sometimes stared the first time they actually met him. Maybe SCORPIA appreciated his age but it did draw attention, too.

Koval stopped by a door. There had been guards at the entrance to the nicer building but there were none now. Koval knocked once and let the two of them inside at the curt acknowledgement.

Zeljan Kurst was seated at a simple desk. The room was warmer than the hallway had been and had somewhat more personality, too. It was still very obviously a room in a military base, but the furniture – desk, table, chairs – had been kept in dark wood, the rug was thick, and there was a bookcase as well. It wasn't modern but it was a lot more comfortable than the rest that Alex had seen.

 _Be respectful. Obey. Never argue._

Alex straightened slightly. He wasn't sure what language Kurst would favour but he settled for English. If the man was unhappy, he would let Alex know. "Sir."

Kurst got up and crossed the room to Alex. The past few days at Malagosto and during the flight, Alex had somehow managed to convince himself that Kurst wasn't quite as intimidating as he remembered from their last meeting. Still lethal but – not quite that bad. On his own now, Alex was reminded of just how wrong he had been.

"Orion." That accented English, always with the lingering threat of violence just beneath the words.

Kurst tilted Alex's head up, forced him to meet his eyes.

 _\- He quite enjoyed seeing the expression in the prisoners' eyes the moment before he executed them -_

Alex didn't doubt Dr Three's words for a moment. He knew what Kurst would see in him now as well. Coiled fear. Anxiety. Resignation. There was no way out. They were in the middle of nowhere in Russia in February, surrounded by ice and snow. Even if Alex could get to a car, he had no idea of where he was or how to get away, no communications but his phone, nothing. No Dr Three to shield him, either, and only the reminder that he was Yassen's property to hopefully keep Kurst from actually harming him.

That was what Kurst wanted to see, and Alex had learned enough to give him exactly that and play the role he would need to for the next however many days.

Kurst let go again. He looked pleased, though the look in his dull, dark eyes never gained a drop of warmth.

"Gregorovich broke you quite thoroughly to his will."

It was not a question, just an observation and a bit of bait, and Alex didn't respond. He had heard worse and he had learned some degree of self-control.

"It was a valuable investment he left behind when he went hunting." Those dull eyes sharpened as they took in Alex's every reaction. This time there was also a clear demand in the words.

"My age makes me conspicuous, sir." Alex managed to keep his voice calm and even. "I also never appreciated Dr Three's lessons as I should. Mr Gregorovich felt it would be educational to leave me at Malagosto for a while."

Kurst nodded slowly. "Much more respectful than during your training, too. Gregorovich was never one to put up with insolence, either."

"No, sir," Alex agreed, deliberately quiet. Kurst expected Yassen to have beaten any defiance out of him and that was the impression Alex had to keep up. There was no fear in his voice, as emotionless as he could make it, but he deliberately let it show just slightly in his body language as he drew on memories of Dr Three. The slightest of shifts, the unease, the quiet words.

It seemed to satisfy the man because he took a step back and returned to the desk. "You will be my assistant for the week. You have some experience with combat zones, you speak excellent Russian, and you are aware of SCORPIA's unique requirements. Security at the meetings will be handled by my normal security detail but I am aware Gregorovich had you trained in executive protection. I expect you to live up to that training if necessary. Koval will take you to your room. There will be a file. I expect you to have read and memorised it by tomorrow. We leave at noon."

Plain, simple orders. Alex knew how to deal with those. "Yes, sir."

Kurst nodded again. He looked entirely too satisfied about something in Alex's opinion. Dr Three's words about impossible choices remained in the back of his mind, never entirely forgotten. Kurst had a week to make Alex's life miserable. Alex, in turn, had a week to work out a way to target the man. Based on Kurst's expression, it would not be a nice week at all.

Kurst's attention returned to his laptop. "Dismissed," he said, and just like that Alex was ignored again, part of the furniture just like the man's security detail or the ever-present guards at Malagosto. Alex really couldn't find it in him to mind in the least.

He followed Koval down the hallways, away from the nicer quarters and to what looked a lot more like normal accommodations. The room that Koval unlocked was small and simple; two bunk beds, four lockers, and a small table, though at least none of the beds seemed to be occupied. Only one of the beds had a mattress, but at least the neat stack of supplies on it seemed to include several extra blankets.

There was a file on the table like Kurst had said, an inch-thick stack of papers that Alex knew would take every minute of the evening to read if he wanted to have any chance of getting through it in time.

" _We will travel with military escort when we leave. Mr Kurst's security detail will join us when we arrive. You will remain close at all times,"_ Koval said in Russian as he handed Alex the keycard to the room, the only bit of technology in a room that could have belonged in any military base in the past fifty years. _"Food is served soon. Be ready at six tomorrow. I will show you the mess hall."_

Alex didn't have stellar expectations of the food but right now he didn't want culinary masterpieces; he just wanted something to eat after a whole day of travel. Koval moved easily through the base. It wasn't huge but still enough of a maze that Alex had to keep a close eye on everything not to get lost among the identical hallways and monotony of grey. He had no idea of how many people the base was home to, but he was almost sure it was the home base of one of SCORPIA's mercenary companies. Their uniforms were completely anonymous, without even the scorpion brand that Alex's uniform carried. They also moved and acted like soldiers to Alex's eye, more like Sagitta's members than the Malagosto graduates he had known.

Koval glanced at him.

" _You are young,_ " he said.

Alex shrugged. _"Mr Gregorovich considered an adult student a waste of his time,"_ he said. _"I was trained as a spy from a young age. He killed my guardian and took over my training."_

The cold, harsh truth, though Alex made sure to make it sound a little harsher and more ruthless than it had actually been. Alex still had a lot of conflicting emotions about Ian and Yassen and Ian's death, but at least Yassen hadn't killed him just to steal Alex away. It had been a mission on opposite sides and – things happened. The knowledge still tasted like ash in Alex's mouth, the thought of what could have been, the life he might have had, the questions he would never get an answer to, but he had learned to accept it. Yassen had forced him to confront that fact often enough for that. Enough that Alex could use it now to give the image he wanted and be reasonably all right with it. He couldn't change the past and in his own way, Yassen had done his best to make up for it.

SCORPIA would have done it, too, Alex was sure. They had ordered him killed after he interfered with Sayle's plans. If they had known a little more about him and about Ian's training, he knew there would have been a very real risk that they would have had him kidnapped instead. Break him and train him, part revenge and part way to regain some of their lost profits. A child assassin was a valuable asset. As it was, Yassen had given him the choice instead. Not a good choice, but still a choice. A year and a half with SCORPIA had taught Alex just how precious that was.

" _The practical solution,"_ Koval agreed.

Up ahead, the hallway – identical to any other hallway – ended in a set of double doors, and Alex heard the muted sounds of voices on the other side of it. The voices grew stronger as the doors opened and a small group of uniformed people left, talking among themselves in Russian.

Koval and Alex stepped inside and the noise got a lot louder. Maybe a hundred and fifty to two hundred people to Alex's estimate, with the mess hall mostly full.

" _You can find your way back?"_ Koval asked.

" _Yes, sir."_ Alex was sure it was a test of some sort, but he had paid close attention. It might take a detour or two, but he would be able to find his room just fine.

It must have been the right response because Koval looked satisfied. Then he left and just like that, Alex was on his own again in the middle of a crowd of people. He hesitated for a moment before he grabbed a tray and went for the food. Maybe he didn't have the protection of Yassen's reputation here, but at least he was in SCORPIA uniform and he was well aware that while he didn't have Yassen or Nile's almost unnatural grace, his training still showed. Hopefully that should be enough that he would be left alone. He did spot one or two people that he was almost sure were operatives as well, but he wasn't about to go and ask. They were in uniform but something about them felt … familiar in the way that all of Malagosto's graduates that Alex had met did. Based on the glances he got from them, the feeling was mutual.

The food was better than expected and as an added bonus, Alex got to eat it without any interruptions. He noticed more than a few long glances at him and quiet conversations as people stared but no one approached him. Either they considered it none of their business or too risky to ask – if there was a teenager in the middle of the base in SCORPIA uniform, someone had brought him there, and no one wanted to offend the wrong person by implying anything about Alex's right to be there or by poking their nose into places it wasn't wanted.

Maybe it was a little lonely on his own in a crowd of people, but it was nicer than the alternatives. Right now, the last thing he wanted was to deal with questions.

He grabbed a few water bottles and some snacks as he left, sure he would need them later. Finding his way back took a little longer than it had on the way out but he got there without too many stops to consider his next move. The file was where he had left it on the table, solid and intimidating, and Alex bit back a sigh as he made his bed and settled down with the stack of papers.

A lot of intel. A lot of background stuff he suspected was there as a test to see if he would actually read it all and finish it in time for Kurst's deadline. A lot of things that weren't classified and some that definitely were. Alex knew better than to take notes but he spent the rest of the evening going through one page after the other, a snack and water bottle close at hand.

It was well after midnight by the time he finished the last of the file. He was exhausted, but this close to Kurst it would not be good sleep.

He had the horrible feeling it would be a long, miserable week.

* * *

Next: Yassen was right. It was always a matter of the right target and the right incentive.


	63. Pompeii, part II

A/N: This one is a bit early since I'll be mostly busy this weekend and it was ready for posting, anyway :)

* * *

Alex woke up tired and bleary-eyed at five that morning. Just enough time to get up, get dressed, and get ready.

He looked about as exhausted as he felt, a quick look in the mirror confirmed that. He didn't remember his dreams, not really, but they hadn't been nice and he had woken up several times absolutely sure someone was going to break into his room. Training could wait. Sleep had been more important.

Alex had slept with his weapons within reach. It hadn't done much to help on anything.

It was cold, too, the small bathroom and the water both, though it did wake him up a little. At least the uniform was warm. He mentally debated for a few moments before he put the ballistic t-shirt on beneath the uniform one. He would still be in uniform but he would get a bit of extra warmth. He really wasn't used to the Russian winter anymore. He felt better with the slight bit of armour, too, for all that it would do nothing against a sufficiently high calibre weapon. Or Kurst, if the man decided to get creative.

He carried his weapons, too, of course – guns and knives. His phone. He considered the heavy ballistic vest that came with his uniform but suspected that Kurst might take that one the wrong way, and it was a lot harder to hide. He shouldn't need it at the base and it didn't matter if he felt quite abruptly naked without it. Koval hadn't worn one when Alex arrived, either, and he really didn't want to potentially offend Zeljan Kurst. He could put in on later, when he might actually need it.

Breakfast was a blur. Alex wasn't sure if 'ready' had included food but he wasn't about to risk anything. There weren't that many people up by then, but he enjoyed the relative quiet. It was a world removed from the civilised air of Malagosto's dining room but there was food and plenty of it and that was all Alex really cared about.

A couple of snacks in his pockets for later and the world looked a lot brighter. He certainly felt a lot more awake as he returned to his room.

Someone knocked on the door at six exactly. Alex wasn't surprised to find Koval waiting on the other side.

" _Mr Kurst wants to see you."_

Alex's guess had been right, then. No time for breakfast. He was glad he had crawled out of bed early enough to handle that himself, then. Six in the morning was entirely too early to deal with Zeljan Kurst – any time of day would have been too early for that, frankly – but it was easier when he wasn't hungry, too. It let him focus on his actual job.

Kurst was in the same office as the evening before, dressed in cold-weather clothes and with a heavy winter jacket on a chair nearby. Not a uniform like Alex's, not for a member of the executive board, but clearly practical. Alex suspected it would be a cold, miserable week for more than one reason. There had been guards by the entrance to the office block, apartment complex, whatever the nicer area was – maybe Kurst's usual place to stay, if he actually passed through the base regularly – but like the day before, there were none by the door. Kurst valued his privacy. It wasn't like he was at much risk in a base like that, either, and Alex knew that, too.

Alex's tiredness probably showed because Kurst's attention lingered on him for a moment longer than it really had to. Amusement, maybe. Or petty satisfaction about whatever had left Alex sleeping so badly – the cold or the isolation or the unease of being around Kurst himself. Alex didn't know and he wasn't about to ask.

Something in Kurst's expression sharpened. Alex got the distinct impression of being in the company of a particularly intelligent shark.

"Orion," the man greeted. "I found a gift for you. A minor little test before we leave. Dr Three and Gregorovich always praised your obedience."

 _He will test you. He will wish to see you broken to his will._

Dr Three's words echoed in his mind. He hadn't wanted to know at the time but it had been a necessary warning. He could feel his anxiety set in again, the worry of just what Kurst had planned, the knowledge that he would probably be expected to kill someone or worse, and knew Kurst would see it, too.

"Yes, sir."

Torture? Interrogation? Alex didn't know. It was common knowledge that he avoided that sort of thing, that he was squeamish about the sort of methods that SCORPIA considered the most natural thing in the world, and he had no idea if Kurst meant to use that against him now. Maybe? He would want to, Alex was sure. Would want to see Hunter's son broken to his will, like Dr Three had said. Whether he could get away with it without drawing Yassen's wrath was another question.

Would Alex be able to get away with refusing? He didn't know that, either.

 _Impossible choices._

Alex's only consolation was that if he did his job right, Kurst wouldn't get the chance to do it again. This week and no more, so long as Alex found the one weakness they needed, the single vulnerable spot that had to be somewhere in Kurst's security. And it was there. The man had already shown one weakness when he targeted Alex and let the desire for revenge overrule common sense. Because Alex might be one of Malagosto's, might have been temporarily under Dr Three's command, but he was ultimately Yassen's, and Kurst knew it. Alex was only reliable to the extent that Yassen Gregorovich was, and Kurst would never have trusted Yassen.

"The slight matter of a loose end, nothing more," Kurst continued. "I will leave your reluctance within Dr Three's domain for the doctor and your master to handle. It would be bad manners to interfere with the training of someone else's property."

Alex could almost see the fishing hook and bait in front of him, just waiting for him to say the wrong thing or react the wrong way. He remained as emotionless as possible. He didn't want to give Kurst the satisfaction and couldn't risk it, either.

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed again. He expected some of Kurst's vindictive mood to fade a little at the lack of a response but the man just smiled, sharp and shark-like. Generally any sort of amusement looked wrong on Kurst's face but in this case, the smile looked right at home.

It didn't look like good news. At all.

Alex followed Kurst and Koval down the carpeted hallway. It wasn't a long walk. Four doors down, another one of those much nicer rooms, and Kurst ran a keycard through the lock and the door opened soundlessly. For a moment, Alex could see nothing, Kurst's massive figure blocking the doorway.

Alex wasn't sure what he had expected. A painfully familiar female voice and slight American accent from inside the room wasn't it.

"You! I don't know who you think you are, but you -"

" _Silence_ , Ms Starbright." Kurst's voice cut through her rant, harsh and vindictive both. "You should be grateful. I brought a visitor for you."

 _Jack._

Alex's heart twisted and raw fear gripped his chest and _squeezed._ Jack was here; in the middle of a SCORPIA base, with _Kurst -_

For a second he couldn't breathe, couldn't even think, and then animal instincts got forced aside by the memory of Dr Three's words, calm and prophetic.

 _He will test you._

A test … but it would not be the test Kurst was expecting. Alex had seconds to decide on a course of action, seconds where no one watched him, seconds to make a decision before Kurst focused his attention on him again and he had to have the façade back up.

A loose end, Kurst had said. Alex could do the maths just fine. He had shown enough attachment to contact her. A year ago, but still. Kurst couldn't target Alex, couldn't reasonably target Sagitta, but he could target Alex's past, the few attachments Yassen hadn't managed to remove. Kurst would expect him to kill her. Remove the danger she represented and watch Alex make that impossible choice between his orders and his own humanity, because trained assassin or not, Alex was still soft. Still human. And Kurst knew it.

The pieces slipped into place within the space of a second, the cold, calculated sort of analysis that Yassen had trained him to use until it had become second nature. Alex couldn't kill Jack, wouldn't let _anyone_ kill Jack, which ruled out one option.

Kurst wouldn't let Jack go, not now, not when she already knew too much. Right now it didn't matter how he had managed to get Jack here. All that mattered was how to get her away again.

Zeljan Kurst had to die. Kurst and his bodyguard both. And afterwards – Alex didn't know. Leave, somehow. Get away from the base and call Yassen and take it from there. Could they blame it on someone else? He had no idea. All he knew was that he couldn't let Jack die. They would have to improvise the rest. He had done that before. Sure, he'd had Smithers' gadgets to help him with that sort of thing in the past but he liked to think that Yassen's training would make up for that.

Alex quite abruptly missed that heavy body armour he had left on his bed. He could feel Koval watch his back, both of the men undoubtedly expecting Alex to react instantly if he was going to refuse. He needed an opening. If he targeted Kurst, it would give Koval enough time to respond. He would expect Alex to go for Kurst if it came to that, would see Alex reach for a gun, and Alex would have no chance at all. If he targeted Koval … neither were likely to expect that. It might give him the moment or two extra he would need for a second shot. Koval was younger, in better shape, trained for the job. He could react faster than Kurst could.

He just needed that opening. Cold clarity settled, the icy focus that Yassen and Malagosto had tried so hard to teach him. All he had needed was the right incentive. The knowledge that it wasn't just his own life at stake, as Yassen had proven in a marina in Singapore so long ago.

Kurst stepped into the room and left Alex in clear view of the room. Gestured for him to come forward, past Kurst's solid shape.

"Orion." His voice was almost the low rumble of whatever big cats did in place of purring. "I believe you two know each other."

Alex caught a second of confusion in Jack's eyes as he stepped inside; dressed in black uniform and several inches taller and a world removed from London, and then recognition kicked in.

"Alex!"

She was on her feet in an instant, halfway across the room before she abruptly stopped at the sight of the gun in Koval's hand as he joined Alex in the room. "You can't -"

Not restrained, Alex noticed and added the observations to his mental file, but Kurst probably didn't consider her a threat at all. Mostly unharmed, moved just fine, no sign of pain; a bruise on the side of her face, large enough to be from a hand, and a scabbed-over scratch to go with it, maybe two days old at the most. Light, superficial, unlikely to scar. Either a lesson or to gain control of the situation, not intended as permanent damage. Otherwise she was Jack. Just as he remembered her. A little paler and more frazzled, her hair a tangled mess, a year and a half older than the last time he had seen her, but _Jack._

Alex knew the role he had to play, the only one that might give him the opening he needed. He turned his head slightly and let the ghost of confusion seep into his voice and expression as he focused on Kurst and utterly ignored Jack.

"Sir?"

"Alex!"

Alex didn't move and didn't respond to her voice. He didn't even look at her. It was maybe the hardest thing he had ever done; his entire attention focused on Kurst and the vicious satisfaction in the dark, dull eyes even as Jack was less than five feet away, so close he could have crossed the distance in two steps and vanished into her hug until both of them were gasping for breath.

If he did, she was dead and he knew it. Maybe he wouldn't be but if he faltered for even a second, let Kurst believe he was anything less than completely broken to Yassen's will -

\- He couldn't afford to fail. If he ever had to get it right, now was it.

"A loose end," Kurst repeated. "Gregorovich does not approve of your tendency to make attachments and she represents a strong one. She will be a weakness. The CIA already used her as bait. Our people had to kill quite a few agents to get their hands on her. They might call it security but she was little more than bait to target you. Remove her and you will remove a significant danger to your own life."

Because Alex had been weak. Because he had called her when he got the chance, those few minutes that Yassen gave him for Christmas. Maybe if it had been Tom he had called, not Jack, it would have been Tom there in her place. But Alex had called Jack Starbright, had allowed himself to pretend for just a little while that life was normal again, and now he had to pay the price for it. They both did.

Alex let the confusion fade a little in favour of slight hesitation and nodded. Kurst would expect that. It would be too suspicious if it weren't there at all.

"... Yes, sir," he agreed. Hesitated slightly and drew on memories of Yassen's punishment after Santa Catarina, the fear of the unknown and the punishment of failure. "Gun or – something else, sir?"

" _Alex!"_ Jack turned to Kurst, her expression furious. "What did you do to him, you -"

" _Silence."_ Kurst's voice was sharper than usual, sharper and harder. He raised his hand slightly and it was enough to make Jack freeze and stop mid-sentence, too. Alex suddenly knew where Jack got that bruise from and cold fury settled in his chest.

"Gun," Kurst continued, calmer. "It is a test, not a punishment. I am not Gregorovich."

Alex had been sure Kurst knew about that punishment from Yassen and now it was confirmed; there was no way the executive board hadn't wanted proof that Alex was completely reliable and back under Yassen's control again. Alex had shot a prisoner at point blank. Kurst knew he could do it, then. There would be no excuse, like there might have been with a knife.

Kurst called it a test; Alex recognised it for the sadistic cat and mouse game that it was. Perfectly reasonably in SCORPIA's point of view, too. Ash had been told to kill Alex's parents – his best friend and the parents of his godson – and now Alex was asked to do -

\- This.

Because if he was really broken to Yassen's whims, if he was really twisted that far to SCORPIA's will, he would obey, and Kurst would delight in it.

Koval had moved close to Kurst, just a bit further inside the room. He was in a perfect position to watch Alex and respond if anything looked wrong. The man trusted nobody, and for good reasons. Kurst seemed more focused on Jack than Alex -

 _\- enjoyed seeing the expression in the prisoners' eyes,_ Alex remembered again and wanted to throw up -

\- and Alex locked their positions in his mind.

He would get one chance, one, and a small one at that. He didn't doubt he could move fast enough to kill Koval. Kurst … Kurst was older but still lethal. Still fast. He had to be, to have remained alive for so long. Alex had underestimated Dr Three but he would not make the same mistake with Zeljan Kurst. If he targeted Kurst first, Koval would have time to take the shot. Alex would be dead and Jack with him. Target Koval first … it was a small chance but the only one he had.

Assume they both wore some degree of body armour, too. Take no chances. He couldn't afford to. Head-shots, then. Riskier, but – he would have to manage.

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed and shifted slightly to focus on Jack again, every emotion wiped from his face. He drew his gun, every motion calm and even and with no attempt to hide them, because if he tensed, if he looked for a moment like he had any second thoughts, that one chance would be gone.

If he ever had to get it right -

\- Now was it.

Jack and Alex's eyes met for a second; warm and furious and confused and hurt against what Alex knew would be calm determination in his own. Jack opened her mouth -

 _One chance._

\- And Alex drew on every lesson Yassen had ever put him through, every moment on the shooting range, every minute correction to his aim and his stance, and embraced the name that SCORPIA had given him.

 _You will be Orion, the hunter. Skilled beyond all mortals -_

He was moving even as Koval was but he still had the element of surprise on his side -

\- _He was still only fifteen, a child, broken to Cossack's will -_

\- And this close, even in motion, the bullet hit Koval perfectly.

 _\- Killed by a monstrous scorpion sent by the gods when he rose above his station._

Alex continued the motion, didn't stay still long enough to present an easy target, and knew even as he did it that he would be a moment too slow; Kurst's own gun already aimed, though slightly lower than Alex's, taking advantage of his lack of body armour -

\- Because Kurst knew what Alex had brought along for the assignment, had known Alex's proper body armour was heavy enough to have been visible, knew that a head-shot was too risky with a target in motion but his chest was unprotected -

\- And Alex ignored it and pulled the trigger the split-second before he felt the bright, burning pain in his chest.

Kurst had reacted fast enough to shoot first but Alex's aim had been good enough for the job. Not perfect but good enough as the man collapsed, a large, bleeding hole in his head.

The pain caught up with Alex a second later; overwhelming pain and sudden breathlessness, and he stumbled. Only a familiar pair of arms kept him from falling face-first onto the floor.

Jack was on her knees next to him a moment later and her hand found the gunshot wound before Alex could, pressing down hard on it with no regard for the two dead bodies next to them even as she forced him onto his side. Pain flared again and forced a rasping breath into his lungs -

 _\- No air and he couldn't **breathe** -_

\- But he forced aside the memories and sudden panic and focused on the wound instead. One breath. Another. He could breathe. He wasn't drowning. He wasn't dying. Focus on the injury, not on the panic.

It hurt. A lot worse than the shot to the chest in Miami, and this time the calibre had been high enough to go through the ballistic fabric.

Lung damage, Alex recognised in some distant, calm corner of his mind. One lung, not both, which was a lot more survivable. Assuming the room wasn't about to be flooded by guards out for their blood. He forced himself to focus through the pain and make sense of what had to be done. There had been no one in the hallway and Kurst wouldn't want them to come running all the time. They would know to ignore gunshots. They would have a minute or two, at least.

… Secure the room, then. Get help. Alex was in no condition to do anything. He could have got the two of them out by virtue of his uniform, but Jack would never manage alone. They needed help.

Yassen wasn't an option, not with Alex badly injured and Yassen himself too far away to do anything, but Dr Three … maybe. If he wasn't about to write Alex off as expendable. If he wasn't going to turn on them. If the couple of people in the mess hall that Alex had seen really were Malagosto-trained. If his control of SCORPIA's operatives was as good this far away as it had been at the school. Alex could only hope so. It would put Jack at risk as well, but they didn't have a choice. They weren't getting out on their own. He would owe the doctor a huge debt, no one in SCORPIA did anything for free, but for Jack -

"- Kurst's keycard," Alex managed. He felt like he was gasping for air. "Lock the door. Phone in my pocket. Need it."

\- For Jack, it was worth it.

Jack's skin was pale but her expression was determined.

"Your hand," she said and grabbed it even as she did, pressing down where her own had been a second before.

Pain flared again, bright and vivid. When Alex's head cleared again, Jack had locked the door and found the phone in his pocket. She pressed against the wound again and closed his fingers around the phone with the other hand.

Right. Unlock it. Fingerprint and code. Alex forced himself to concentrate on the screen. It took two attempts and almost more focus than he had left, but he got it unlocked and found the number he needed. "Dr Three. Call. Say what happened."

Jack nodded. Any questions she had, she had clearly pushed aside for now. She kept her hand on the wound as she called, both reassurance and to help keep any air from getting into his punctured lung. She had gone through first-aid courses, Alex distantly remembered. Ian had made her. He was thankful for that now. The ballistic vest hadn't stopped the bullet but it had done enough. Had bought them a chance, at least. He was still bleeding, still had a ruined lung, but he also had a chance. Hopefully.

The seconds stretched on. There were blood droplets on the rug by his mouth, Alex noticed with a bit of detachment, and his mouth tasted metallic. He inhaled again, triggered a coughing fit, and when he could focus again through the pain and watering eyes, Jack had paled a little more but had lost none of the determined expression.

Her lips moved. Alex couldn't make out the words through the weird cotton feeling in his ears. She watched him but her focus seemed to be on the phone. He blinked. It must have been a long blink because when he focused on her again, she was watching him and talking again.

"-lex?"

Alex settled for a nod, saving the air for more important things. Air seemed really important right now.

"Help is on its way," Jack said. "I'm going to open the door. Our cover is that SCORPIA recruited me at the same time as you. I've been one of their informants. Kurst's bodyguard was an undercover agent. He recognised me, knew his cover was blown, and shot Kurst. You shot him but got hit yourself in the process. All right?"

"... Right," Alex managed. Simple story and it could easily be disproved just from an examination of the bodies, but it only had to hold for long enough to get them elsewhere. It would do. Jack would have to handle things, Alex too out of it to be of much help to anyone. Most of his focus was spent on breathing, one wheeze after the other. He felt reasonably clear-headed again but that could change, too. For now it was a good sign. He still needed a hospital but there was time. There wasn't much they could do now but hope their cover would hold, but there was one thing Alex had to say. "Dr Three – Chinese. Looks like a retired school teacher. He's a board member. SCORPIA's interrogation expert. I went against plans. Be careful."

It cost him another coughing fit, another round of bloodstains on the rug, and all he wanted to do was curl up in a ball of misery, but he couldn't. Not yet.

Jack's fingers squeezed his, brief and reassuring before she made him press down on the wound again. "Got it. And we'll have a talk about _this_ later. I'm too young for grey hair."

Then she was gone, off to unlock the door.

Alex turned his head and focused on the rug; grey and dull and military like the rest of the place, and the red stains where he had coughed up blood. An accidental glance up and he met Koval's dead eyes and he felt nausea join with the breathlessness to add to the horrible feeling of misery. Pain and helplessness and guilt. He had called Jack when he got the chance. He could have refused, and maybe that had been a test, too, back then, and he had failed it and he had never known.

"Alex?" Jack's hand joined his, concern in her voice. He hadn't even noticed her return. That was probably a bad sign. Losing focus again.

He turned his focus back on her and nodded slightly, cautiously. He didn't want to speak. Speaking took air he didn't have and made him remember weeks of fear, of water, of _drowning -_

"Just keep breathing," she said with unnatural calm. Alex was in no position to protect her right now, was in no position to do _anything,_ but she took over easily and he wanted to hug her so badly he could have cried. "Nice and even. Help is on its way. Your right lung is fine. I know it doesn't feel like it, but keep breathing, nice and even, and you'll be fine."

Assuming he didn't have internal bleeding. Assuming the bullet hadn't done any other damage. Assuming he didn't catch an infection. Assuming a lot of things.

Where was the nearest hospital? Alex had no idea. Maybe they had a medical clinic on the base. Those place had that sort of thing, didn't they? Alex was pretty sure he knew the answer but it was hard to focus enough to remember.

Nothing he could do right now, anyway. He focused on Jack's words instead, on her warm hand around his, on her familiar presence, and tried to just breathe. Yassen would be unhappy, he was sure. Yassen could go take a hike.

Alex had no idea of time. They could have sat there in silence for seconds or minutes as Alex focused on breathing. He assumed he was breathing, anyway. Jack hadn't told him he had stopped.

Finally sounds appeared by the door, footsteps and voices, and then uniformed people and someone carrying a bright red bag. Medic, maybe. Alex hoped so. Did any of them speak English? He hadn't thought about it until now. Jack didn't speak Russian.

There were words, weirdly muffled and incomprehensible to Alex's ears, and Jack let go of his hand. Then there was a mask over his face and a brief sting in his arm, almost lost in everything else, and breathing got a little easier.

Someone leaned over and said something to Alex that he couldn't make out. He tried to focus but lost his train of thought before he could grasp it. Then the painkiller kicked in and the world fell away.

* * *

Next: Alex has had better mornings.


	64. Starbright

Alex woke up to bright lights and the smell of hospital. It was a struggle to open his eyes; the artificial exhaustion of drug-induced sleep. It felt like it would be hopeless to even turn his head. He blinked and managed to focus enough to look around slightly. A white room and a number of medical instruments, and a woman scribbling down something as she watched one of them. No clock that he could see but there was a small window.

Grey daylight outside, a little hazy, but no sounds that Alex could pick up on beyond the soft murmurs of the medical devices and the nurse's writing.

His chest hurt. There was a _plastic tube_ sticking out of the left side of it. He could barely keep his eyes open. He could breathe, though. He remembered the military base, remembered Kurst, remembered _Jack,_ and he tried to make sense of it all.

No guards, just a nurse. Not a prisoner, then. No Jack, either, but that didn't have to mean anything and he knew that even through the immediate, instinctive surge of fear. He had to assume their plan, Dr Three's plan, had worked.

Alex should probably have managed a little better than that but he was too tired and a little too startled to still be alive at all. He blinked – maybe a little longer than a blink, he was just so damn _tired_ – and when he opened his eyes again, the grey daylight was still the same but the woman was at his side instead. Forties, warm eyes, dyed hair, looked unarmed, Alex's hazy mind supplied.

She checked the devices and gave him a small but genuine smile when she saw he was watching her.

" _Well, good morning to you. That was a good nap you caught. How are you doing?_ "

Russian; definitely her first language. It took Alex a few seconds to work up the energy to reply.

" _Tired. Thirsty._ " The Russian came easily to him, at least. His voice sounded hoarse. His throat hurt. He had a hard time keeping his eyes open. He could talk a little easier, but he still felt breathless.

The woman helped him drink through a straw, some bright red sugary juice or another that tasted entirely artificial. It helped a little on his throat and cleared up his mind a bit, too. He still felt a little out of it and recognised the feeling as strong painkillers.

" _Your sister wants to see you_ ," she continued when the juice had been put aside again. " _Do you feel up for visitors?_ "

Sister. _Jack._

Alex didn't feel up for anything but he still nodded. Had to see for himself that she was okay, that he hadn't ruined the one, small chance he'd had to protect her.

" _Yes,"_ he agreed. The nurse smiled and left his side to open the door, and the low murmur of voices followed.

Footsteps, several sets of them. Then Jack appeared, a uniformed man a few steps behind her. One of the people from the mess hall at the base, Alex's mind supplied, one of the people he had mentally marked as an operative. Then Jack was there and he could focus on nothing else.

" _Alex._ " She managed to put a year and a half worth of fear and worry into that one word, her hand gripping his tightly, and she looked like she hadn't slept for days. " _Alex._ You scared the life out of me."

"Kind of scared myself, too," Alex managed. "Sorry. I'm – sorry."

There were a thousand things he wanted to say, a thousand things he couldn't, too tired and hoarse and within feet of one of SCORPIA's people, but she seemed to understand, because she squeezed his hand.

"This is Sagaris," Jack said and nodded at the man by her side. "He speaks English. He's been helping me out."

Definitely one of Malagosto's. She hadn't been left on her own, then. Sagaris was almost certainly a way for Dr Three to keep an eye on them but right now Alex didn't care.

"Thank you," he said in English.

The man smiled briefly. He looked young. Not much older than Nile. "It was a nice break from things."

That drew a smile from Alex, too. He could imagine that base would be boring in the middle of nowhere. Were they even allowed to leave it? Were they waiting for an assignment? He had no idea. Some of them had been supposed to be Kurst's military escort while they travelled, he was sure of that, but he had no idea about the rest.

And speaking of no idea …

"Where are we, anyway?" He assumed Russia but he really didn't know. How long had he been out of it? He had no idea about that, either.

"A hospital in Omsk. You went through surgery yesterday. You've been on a ventilator overnight. They just removed it. You were awake a few times but you probably don't remember it. They kept you sedated for most of it."

He didn't recall a thing. He had lost a whole day somehow and he had no idea of how. Well, injuries and drugs, he assumed. It was still an unnerving thought.

"I've got a tube sticking out of me," he said.

"A tube -" Jack made a sound that was somewhere between choked sob and hysterical laughter. "Alex, you almost _died._ They had to do emergency surgery at that base just to get you stable enough to transfer to a proper hospital."

Jack wiped her eyes. They looked red and a bit puffy.

"Yes, you have a tube in your chest. Hopefully just for a few days," she said. "Your lung still isn't completely okay, but surgery went well and you're healing pretty good already. They managed to get everything put back together all right. A couple of days, and you'll be breathing right again."

Given that he had been shot through the lung and apparently almost died, he probably couldn't complain about a few days stuck with a chest tube. It didn't hurt. It just felt – odd, now that he was aware of it. Maybe that was the painkillers, too. He hadn't thought he was that injured. It had hurt to be shot, and he'd had a lot of trouble breathing, but it hadn't felt like dying.

He swallowed. His throat still hurt. "... I missed you," he admitted quietly. "I'm sorry."

 _For getting you tangled up in this. For making you worry. For everything._

Jack's grip on him tightened briefly and her voice was soft, probably the first time in days she had been able to let down her guard just a little, too. "Oh, Alex."

It was enough to let Alex know she had missed him, too. That he hadn't messed everything up beyond repair. That she still cared, even though he was a killer and a wanted terrorist now.

She brushed a hand through his hair, the gesture so familiar it made his heart hurt. "Just get some rest, you got it? Your _doctor_ has arranged for a medical flight once you're well enough to travel."

 _Your doctor._ Dr Three, then. The way she said it left little doubt. Maybe it was a good sign. Maybe it was a bad one. There was nothing he could do about it right now, anyway. He didn't know where Yassen was or what the man was doing. He could message him but actually putting letters together into words seemed like an insurmountable task. If Yassen already knew what had happened, it was because Dr Three had told him. If he didn't, there would be a lot of explaining to do, and Alex was exhausted again already.

He needed sleep. Then he could consider a course of action. Jack seemed safe for now. He would have to trust she would stay that way, because he was in no condition to do anything about it.

Jack squeezed his hand one last time and got up. Alex was asleep again before she had left the room.

* * *

Alex slept most of the day. He woke up occasionally, a few times for long enough to eat a small meal, but for the most part he slept. More than he had since … he wasn't sure. Since after Miami, maybe. He had slept a lot then, too. He didn't dream much, but what little he did were nightmares about being a second too slow, of bleeding out on the floor and forced to watch as Kurst shot Jack, and he would wake up with a racing heart and vivid images of Jack's body in a pool of blood.

There were two guards outside the room that he caught a glimpse of occasionally when the door opened, and there was usually a nurse nearby, but for the most part he just … slept.

" _You were shot,_ " Alex's Russian doctor told him bluntly one of the times he was awake and coherent. _"You were fortunate that the bullet caused less damage than it could have and that your doctor on base was trained as a surgeon. You will recover but your body needs to heal. You broke a rib and bruised two others. Time will see to those. You have been in a state of prolonged stress, which hasn't done you any good, either. Sleep and food will do you well. Heal and rest well and your chest tube will be removed in a couple of days. Barring complications, you will be allowed to leave in a week with instructions of further rest at home."_

" _But I will recover,_ " Alex said, the most important words he had heard in that explanation. Right now he didn't feel like he would ever have the strength to even leave the bed, much less leave the hospital, but -

" _You will recover."_ The doctor sounded sure. _"Surgery went well, you are young, and you heal better than expected so far. Without complications, I expect you will be back to full strength in four months. You are well-trained. It will take a while to recover to that level. There will be scars from the bullet and chest tube both but you have others already."_

Four months. Right now it sounded like forever to Alex though he knew on some level that it was about the same amount of time Nile had spent recovering after Invisible Sword. If it took four months, Yassen would give him that time. He still felt useless, stuck in a hospital bed, but it wasn't like he could _do_ anything. He had made his choice and killed Kurst, the one chance he'd had to save Jack. He had to trust that Yassen had the situation with Mikato under control.

He had dinner with Jack that night, moved to a chair – to help recovery, his nurse claimed as she ran through a list of breathing exercises he had to do, too – and they talked about everything and nothing. Well, Jack did most of the talking. Alex's throat felt a lot better already but he was still hoarse and exhausted and he didn't feel like talking all that much.

The first message from Yassen since Kurst's death arrived on Alex's phone that evening.

 _I expect you to follow all instructions given to you by your doctors and nurses._

Alex smiled. That was as close to 'I'm glad you're alive' as Yassen-speak ever got. It also meant that someone else – probably Dr Three – had made sure Yassen was up to date on things. Less explaining for Alex to do.

 _Well, they might not give me the good painkillers otherwise._

 _Perhaps. Security is on its way to keep you company until you can be transferred elsewhere. I trust Starbright to keep you out of further trouble until then._

Transferred elsewhere. Probably Malagosto, though Alex honestly had no idea. He also didn't really like to admit it, but he would feel better for security of some sort around. There were guards outside, sure, but he didn't know them. Yassen would have picked someone he trusted. Probably not Sagitta since they were busy already, but someone hopefully a little familiar. Even just the knowledge that Yassen had things under control was a big relief. That it wasn't just Dr Three aware of the situation.

 _Yes, sir._

 _Rest, Alex. We will talk later._

Maybe it wasn't the best bed Alex had ever slept in, but he slept better than he had in a long time that night.

* * *

Alex woke up to find some familiar company with Jack as she entered his room with breakfast.

"Alex, this is -"

"- Commander Hill," Alex said before she could. "In charge of team Danube." His smile was genuine, the relief of seeing someone he knew and reasonably trusted both with his own safety and Jack's, and Hill nodded.

"Sir. Good to see you in one piece."

How much did Danube know about the situation? Alex didn't know but he would assume the man and the rest of Danube had only been told the cover story until he heard otherwise. He wondered briefly about the rest of Kurst's security detail. They had already been at the meeting site, preparing security for the week. He would have to assume Yassen or Dr Three had arranged to see that handled, too. One way or the other.

With Sagitta under Yassen's command, it made sense to send Danube. They knew him and were used to him, too. Enough to make Alex feel safer, at least. He had to assume clean-up after the Congo assignment had long since been handled. He didn't know where they had been pulled from to reroute them to Omsk and he really didn't care. Perk of the job of being Yassen Gregorovich's second in command, he assumed.

Jack put the breakfast tray on the table. It was a little awkward to get out of bed, and going to the bathroom when he insisted on doing it himself took a lot longer than it should have, but eventually he was back in the comfortable chair by the bed and poking the various things on the tray.

Eggs, porridge of some sort, a simple sandwich with dark bread and sausage, and coffee. Alex preferred tea but he had learned to appreciate anything with caffeine, and someone had been kind enough to add milk and sugar already as he discovered when he took a sip. Most of it was familiar from his time in Yassen's cabin, though breakfast there had been a lot heavier. Meant for a day of hard training.

Jack had a cup of coffee of her own, fingers wrapped around the hot mug. Hill settled in the chair by the door, far enough away to give the illusion of privacy. Security and surveillance both, Alex assumed, though probably the reasonably benign sort of surveillance. Yassen's way to make sure Alex followed orders.

"How do you feel?" Jack asked. "You look better."

"I feel better." Alex took several deep breaths like he had been told by the nurse and he could feel the difference a full day of rest had made. He was still on the good painkillers but his breathing felt a little easier. "I feel – okay."

Not great but better. Progress.

Jack smiled. She looked tired like she had the day before as well, though Alex couldn't blame her. Halfway across the world where she didn't understand the language, at the mercy of a terrorist organisation, and the only person she knew was stuck in a hospital room. At least someone had found her some clean clothes. He suspected her old ones were a lost cause.

Alex poked the bowl of porridge. It had some sort of raspberry jam on top and didn't taste all that bad.

"How are you doing?" he asked quietly.

Jack's smile turned a little pained. "I'm – all right," she said, very vaguely and not about to reveal too much around an outsider like Hill.

Worried, Alex translated. He doubted she'd had the chance to call and reassure her parents that she was alive and safe at the moment, or that she would want to draw that sort of attention to them even if she got the chance. If Kurst's people had killed the agents in charge of security and surveillance around her, he could only imagine how worried her parents would be. At least her bruise was healing and had gained the yellowish tone to it that showed some progress, and the scab looked a lot better, too.

When she would actually be able to return home … that was a different question and one they both very obviously were going to avoid for now. Her call to Dr Three had been their way out of that base alive. Now, Alex would need to find a way to extract her from SCORPIA's grasp. Alex himself had been a useful hostage to ensure Yassen's cooperation. He wasn't blind to the fact that Jack could easily become the same to him.

"That's – good," Alex said, just as vaguely.

For a while they sat there in silence. Jack finished her coffee and Alex slowly made his way through breakfast. A nurse appeared to check on him. Left again when everything looked all right. The weather outside was grey and cloudy and looked like snow. Everything about the day somehow felt like a Monday. Alex hadn't given much thought to weekdays since he left London but something about the day just felt … Monday-ish.

"I hope they didn't cause you too much trouble," Alex finally said. "Byrne and … the rest of them."

That was safe enough to say, even if they had to keep up her cover of being a SCORPIA informant.

"They were more polite than Blunt," Jack said, "not that _that's_ saying much. Still a bunch of creeps. They did put me in a safe-house after your promotion, though."

A safe-house that Kurst's people had obviously found and kidnapped Jack from, and probably killed every single agent there if his words back at the base had been anything to go by. Alex tried not to think about how many people had been killed for Kurst's little games or how close Jack had come to being one of them.

There wasn't much he could say to that, and so he just nodded. They didn't speak all that much that day, the two of them, but the silence was comfortable and the company was exactly what Alex needed. There would be plenty to worry about later. Right now he just enjoyed her company.

Jack had been given a room at a nearby hotel, as had the members of Danube that weren't on guard duty at that moment. Alex had two people present at all times but didn't really mind. They were familiar company in a very unfamiliar place. He slept a little better for the additional security, too, for Jack and himself both. He still didn't know what was happening beyond the hospital, didn't know what sort of reception they would face when they left, but he forced himself to ignore that, too. There was nothing he could do for the moment, anyway. Yassen hadn't sounded worried. That had to count for something.

At least his doctor sounded satisfied. Alex did his breathing exercises and was up and moving as well as could be expected from a combination of boredom, stubbornness, and general good health. That apparently paid off.

" _You make good progress,"_ the man said. _"We may be able to remove the chest tube tomorrow."_

Best news Alex had heard all day.

" _With the chest tube removed, it has been agreed you will be cleared to travel the next day under the condition that you continue to improve as well as you have. You are young and healthy. It makes little sense to ground you for two weeks. You will be given clear instructions to follow. I expect you to obey them to the letter."_

" _Yes, sir,"_ Alex agreed easily, slipping into the same sort of respectful address that had long since become habit.

Cleared to travel. To Malagosto or elsewhere, Alex wasn't sure. On one hand, he would likely be going back to Dr Three. On the other, he would be in a position to do something to help Jack.

Jack arched an eyebrow. Alex waited until the doctor left to translate. "If I'm lucky, the tube comes out tomorrow and we can travel the day after that."

"I'm guessing not to the States?" she asked, a little wryly.

"Probably the … school I attended," Alex said and deliberately avoided being too specific in an insecure location. "That's where I spent the past month before - _he_ decided to play his games."

He avoided Kurst's name, too. It was a bit of an awkward way to have a conversation but Jack seemed to get it. Maybe she had grown used to it with the CIA looking over her shoulder every minute of the day.

"Going to see your _doctor,_ " she concluded.

Alex nodded. "Probably. My – boss is elsewhere." Elsewhere, and Alex had no idea of where or exactly what Yassen was up to, or when the man would be back, for that matter. It was unnerving. Yassen was probably working on a way to take Mikato out, especially now that Kurst was dead and with the running countdown of how long Nile could keep up the charade that Chase was still alive, but Alex had no way to know. He definitely wasn't going to ask.

Alex didn't know what they would face, either, and he couldn't tell Jack anything for sure. Not about their destination, not about what would await them there, not about the future.

She seemed to know, because she didn't ask any further.

It was a quiet evening. Still sore and exhausted, Alex was quite all right with that.

* * *

His chest tube was removed the following morning. A bit of discomfort and it was done, and it was really nothing compared to the pain he still remembered, lying on that rug in the base. The pain from the bruised and broken ribs was familiar from Miami and was a minor thing compared to the rest.

His lungs were doing great, both of them. The left one still needed to heal completely but it was a great start given what had happened. The medical staff ran him through a number of tests and Alex was sure his medical file got quite a few pages thicker in the process. Pages he would probably be expected to be able to decipher himself eventually.

It didn't matter. What mattered was that the chest tube was gone and he could move freely again. Slow and cautious and a little sore, but unrestrained. He slept bad enough with just an IV needle. The chest tube had been a whole different level of awkward. He even had proper clothes on again. Sure, it was a perfectly anonymous black set of clothes from the SCORPIA base, but they were real clothes and not the hospital stuff. It made him feel a lot more like himself again.

Now he was looking at a couple of weeks of rest followed by probably four months of recovery. Assuming he got the amount of time the Russian doctor had recommended, but Alex expected that to be the case. Nile had been given whatever time he needed, too, as had Adams and Jarek after their injuries. Alex would just be one more on the list. He had been given the weeks needed to recover from the bruised ribs as well. He was a valuable investment to SCORPIA. If it took four months before he was back in the field, it was still better than having to write off an asset entirely, even if he had paid off his training debt already.

He was sure Yassen already had a plan for him, complete with early bedtimes and a healthy meal plan for added torture. Encouragement to keep him from getting injured again, though Alex was sure part of it was just Yassen's inherent sadism. He found it entirely too amusing to get Alex to eat healthy for it to be anything else.

Jack seemed to agree with Yassen's methods. She certainly kept a close eye on him, just like Hill and the rest of Danube seemed to do. Alex would have been annoyed but given that he had been shot the last time he went off on a mission alone – with Kurst, sure, but with none of his usual backup – he really couldn't blame them. He was bored and restless and about ready to climb the walls, but his experience with bruised ribs had also taught him painfully that things took time to heal and that it helped to follow his doctor's orders.

And so Alex did just that. Based on Jack's mildly suspicious expression, she probably thought it was a trap of some sort or a way for Alex to somehow get out of his rehabilitation program. He might have considered it, except he wasn't going to get very far in his current condition.

Dr Three called that evening, too. Alex stared at the phone for long seconds that felt like forever but wasn't actually more than a single ring. Then he picked it up. Jack, spotting his expression, frowned and fell quiet.

" _Orion. I hear you are recovering well."_

It wasn't really a question, the man had probably seen the medical files, but Alex answered, anyway. "Yes, sir. They removed the chest tube this morning."

Dr Three made a small sound of agreement. _"A medical flight has been arranged for tomorrow morning. You will return to Malagosto. I expect you to bring your security team and Ms Starbright."_

No surprise there. The words still settled cold and heavy. It was too risky to let Jack go right now, especially with Mikato still alive, and Alex knew it. Returning to the school, though … even without training, Jack could be observant if she wanted to. She was bound to pick up a lot about the inner workings of the place; things that couldn't be spotted on satellite photos or long-range surveillance. It was too risky to let her go now. A couple of weeks at Malagosto and it might be too risky to let her leave at all, and Alex knew that, too.

There was nothing he could do, though. They wouldn't get far on their own, with Jack having no resources available and Alex himself still injured. If they'd had half a chance of success, if they had been somewhere familiar, if Alex hadn't been injured …

… Maybe.

If it hadn't meant leaving Yassen and Sagitta behind. If it hadn't meant making both of them a huge target. If things had been a lot more simple.

Did Dr Three want a good look at her? Was it a way to gain another hold on Alex? He didn't know that, either. Alex would do anything to keep her safe and Dr Three had to know that, too. Yassen might decide she was a liability, but Yassen had also let him call her in the first place and he had to know that Alex wouldn't react well to having anything threaten her.

He supposed that in the end, it all came down to how valuable he was to Yassen's plans and how valuable those plans were to Dr Three. He would find a solution, one way or the other. He wasn't about to let Jack pay for his decisions any more than she already had.

A heartbeat. Then Alex took a deep breath. "Yes, sir."

The call ended. Alex put the phone back down. "We'll leave tomorrow morning. There'll be a plane waiting. We're going to the – school I went to."

Jack had to have picked up on the tension in his body, she knew him too well not to. She still kept her voice light. "Wrong time to mention I forgot my passport on the counter?"

Alex laughed in spite of himself. A little careful and pretty sore but it felt surprisingly good. "Want some of mine? They're all fake, anyway. Pretty good ones, though. One of them's female. Think you can pass for a sixteen-year-old Russian-American girl?"

"Only if security is manned by myopic moles. And I want the story behind that eventually, you know."

"You'll get it," Alex promised.

For long seconds it was silent. Then Jack made a tired sound and pulled him close into a careful hug. "I'm supposed to be the adult here and worry about things."

Alex hugged back like his life depended on it and refused to feel the least bit ashamed about it. It was Jack and he hadn't seen her in a year and a half, and she was _there_ and he had almost lost her. "I'm the reason you got tangled up in this, too. I'm sorry."

Jack ran a hand through his hair. "We'll blame MI6, how does that sound?"

"Blame everything on Blunt? Works with me." He didn't mention his worries. That was a little too risky and he suspected she had a pretty good idea, anyway. It wasn't like either of them could do much about it right now.

She ruffled his hair lightly. "Get some sleep. Early day tomorrow."

Alex's brain felt like it would never calm down enough to sleep. It rapidly found itself outvoted by the rest of him.

* * *

Their transport arrived at seven the next morning. It was still snowy and grey outside but the car, a large, loud army vehicle, didn't care in the slightest. If it was bothered by the weather or the temperature or the ice in any way, Alex didn't notice it.

The plane that greeted them at the airport – the proper one this time, not the anonymous runway – was a chartered Gulfstream. Alex didn't know the crew but he did recognise one person on board.

"Ma'am," he greeted Dr Javadi politely.

The doctor smiled faintly in return. "Orion. You look quite well for someone who was at death's door not five days ago."

He was irrationally happy to see her. He hadn't spent much time with her but like Danube, she was familiar company. The Russian doctors and nurses had been good, but Dr Javadi knew his full medical history. He suspected it also said a bit about the value placed on him. Both as Yassen's second and possible successor but also as Dr Three's hostage, apprentice, whatever he was on any given day. Maybe they would have done the same for someone like Nile, but Alex doubted there were any normal operatives Dr Javadi would have left the school for.

"They patched me up pretty well," Alex agreed. "Ma'am, this is Jack Starbright. She pretty much raised me from when I was seven. Jack, Dr Javadi. She's the doctor at the – school I've gone to."

SCORPIA knew his family history; Alex would assume the doctor did, too. At least she nodded.

"Ms Starbright. We were told to expect you," she agreed. "You will remain with Orion. There are bags with an appropriate change of clothes for both of you. I would appreciate another set of eyes to watch him for any future complications, and certainly someone who is used to him."

Jack seemed torn between unhappiness at SCORPIA's attention and relief that someone else seemed to care about Alex's health and well-being.

"... Right," she finally settled on after a glance at Alex. "Better than what MI6 bothered to do."

Keep up the role of the SCORPIA mole while staying herself. Alex could have hugged her.

There was an actual bed for Alex if he needed it and more medical supplies than he was entirely comfortable with, but both his Russian doctor and Dr Javadi seemed confident that he would be fine. He would just have to trust that. Dr Javadi must have noticed his stare because she glanced at the medical supplies, then at him.

"A precaution. The usual recommendation is no flying for two weeks after the removal of the chest tube, but not everyone holds to that and there are no indications that an otherwise healthy individual that recovers well is in any risk from earlier air travel. It doesn't hurt to have, though. You are still my patient and this is a medical transport."

Alex supposed that made sense. Jack looked satisfied, too, as she settled next to him. Alex fastened his seat belt and let the doctor hook him up to a couple of small medical devices. Pulse, oxygen saturation, and a blood pressure cuff waiting to one side. He wasn't going to admit it but it did make him feel a bit better.

The take-off was the smoothest Alex had ever experienced. Jack reached over and squeezed his hand briefly.

 _It'll be all right,_ she didn't say out loud.

Alex didn't reply, just squeezed back. Somewhere out there, Yassen and Sagitta were still hunting Mikato. He hadn't heard anything else, at least, and they were good at what they did. Alex trusted them to stay safe. Chase and Kurst were already dead. The big question now was Dr Three. Dr Three and Yassen and exactly how they were going to do things in the future. Assuming things with Mikato worked as planned.

The plane levelled out. The world beneath them was the endless white-grey of winter clouds, the snowy landscape hidden from view. Dr Javadi checked on him but left them alone again when he looked fine.

For a long time neither spoke. Then Alex finally voiced what he had wavered back and forth on for days now. SCORPIA knew about Jack and the phone call. Alex had never called Tom but SCORPIA knew about him, too. If Jack was a target …

"Have you heard from Tom?" Alex asked softly. "I never called him but I did ask you to pass on that I was okay and – I think that's why you got targeted. Because of that phone call."

"MI6 started to keep him under increased surveillance after they found out about your … promotion," Jack said, just as softly. "Byrne's people put me in a safe-house. They claimed it was for security but we both know it was bait. Blunt didn't tell Tom anything so I did. Jones increased the number of guards around him afterwards as well, just in case."

Probably safe, then. Alex hadn't heard anything to the contrary, at least. Jack would always be the primary target because she had raised him. Because he had caved to MI6's demands for her. Because he was still attached and SCORPIA knew it.

It was still a relief to know that Tom was probably all right despite everything that had happened. Even if he had to deal with Jones and Blunt. At least they would have no reason to recruit him. Tom didn't have the background or the training.

"Thank you."

Jack squeezed his hand again. No one approached them. Hill and his team kept a respectful distance, just like Dr Javadi did. It was probably blatantly obvious to everyone that they just wanted to be alone for a little while.

"I knew your missions for MI6 were bad," Jack said softly once the silence had stretched on for what felt like forever. "I hadn't expected – this."

Alex swallowed. Remembered the months with MI6 that felt like so long ago. He had been a lot more innocent back then. A lot more naïve. He wondered how Jack was dealing with it. He had seen plenty of dead bodies by now. She had just seen two people shot right in front of her, and it didn't really matter that they would have killed her. They had still been living, breathing human beings.

"This was – he wanted revenge," Alex spoke quietly, so quiet the words carried no further than Jack. "For my father. He never forgave my dad's betrayal. I was a good way to get even. He couldn't touch me, not while I had Yassen's protection, but you were vulnerable and – I'm attached. SCORPIA knows that."

Jack snorted. "You won't get me to believe your missions for these people are any nicer than the ones from MI6."

 _Point._ Alex didn't wince but he did remember blood and gunshots and torture and death, remembered sacrificing one bit of morals after the other in the name of survival and the ultimate goal of SCORPIA's destruction – takeover, now – and he let out a slow breath.

"Yeah." It wasn't agreement. It wasn't really disagreement, either.

"I should have said something. Done something." Bitter and tired, not something Alex ever wanted to hear from her, and he shook his head slightly.

"There was nothing you could have done," he said. "They would have kicked you out of the country if you'd made too much of a fuss and then I would have had no one. You did everything you could."

The cold, harsh truth that Yassen had taught him to accept. It was a nice thought that maybe Jack could have done something. Alex was painfully aware that if Blunt really wanted his cooperation, he would have had it, Jack's objections and Alex's reluctance be damned.

Silence again but heavier now. Alex glanced over. Jack shook her head, a small, bitter smile on her lips.

"You know I arrived in London as a student. It was never planned that I was going to stay as a housekeeper for as long as I did, but things happened, and … you were you. A wonderful, inquisitive seven-year-old bundle of energy with a mostly-absent uncle, but you handled even that. You seemed so old at times and just like any other seven-year-old at other times. And suddenly I had been there for almost seven years, and the longer I stayed, the harder it would be to break those bonds, and I knew I didn't want to be a housekeeper forever. I had even written up my resignation letter, probably the hardest thing I've ever done, and then …"

"... Cornwall happened," Alex finished. The timeline matched and that would definitely be enough to make Jack change her mind.

"Cornwall happened," Jack agreed softly. "And you were alone, and MI6 used me against you, and how could I leave you? I felt horrible about wanting to resign, like I was the worst person in the world, but I thought it was for the better. You were growing up and we could still be friends. We could still see each other."

Jack fell silent. Alex didn't speak. It hurt, he would be lying if he said otherwise, but part of him also appreciated the honesty. And she had stayed – maybe she hadn't felt she had a choice, but she had stayed. Most others would have done the sensible thing and left rather than get tangled up in the horrible world Blunt had dragged Alex into. She had stayed and she had done what she could to protect him. She had wanted to resign when he was old enough to manage on his own, no longer the child with the absent uncle. When that had changed, she had stayed despite everything.

"Is that the sort of thing you should be telling a grievously wounded fifteen-year-old?"

Jack snorted. She sounded relieved. "Don't think I didn't notice you stole a second plate of dessert last night, Mr Grievously Wounded Fifteen-Year-Old – who's going to turn sixteen in less than a week, too." She was silent for a few seconds before she continued, quieter. "I promised myself I would tell you if I ever got the chance. I felt so guilty. No more secrets. You deserved the truth. We've both had enough lies by omission from Blunt and Byrne."

Jack probably wasn't aware of it, but Alex's Yassen-trained mind also knew that left one less thing that could be used against the two of them.

It hurt but he understood and he was okay with that. Time, distance, and painful experiences saw to that. And after a year and a half with SCORPIA and Yassen, he appreciated the honesty. Besides, with the sort of secrets he kept, the things he had done and that he would never, ever tell her, he really had no right to be upset.

"Thank you for telling me."

Jack gave him a wry smile, though her relief was obvious. "Thank you for understanding."

This time Alex was the one to squeeze her hand and Jack the one to squeeze back.

She took a deep breath. "So. That school-teacher doctor of yours."

"Dr Three." She needed to know. They were due at Malagosto and it would be a lot safer for her if she knew what she was getting into. That didn't mean Alex was comfortable with the conversation to come. "With Kurst dead, he's one of the few surviving members of executive board that founded SCORPIA about twenty years ago. He actually is a medical doctor but he's been one of the world's foremost experts on torture and interrogation for the past two decades and -"

It was a necessary conversation. It really didn't make it any nicer for either of them as he filled in the most important blanks in-between naps and snacks and regular check-ups on his condition.

It would be a long flight to Abu Dhabi.

* * *

Next: The further (mis)adventures of Yassen and Sagitta.


	65. Interlude: Live and Let Die

A/N: Most of this chapter runs parallel with the previous one and ends at the same time, pretty much down to the hour. And as always, thank you for reading and for your reviews :)

* * *

The updates Yassen got from Alex and Dr Three both were few and rather short. Alex's were vague. Dr Three, used to the layered, political talk of the executive board, managed to be quite a bit more informative at times, though no less vague to an outsider.

Yassen got the update he had been waiting for four days after Chase's death.

 _I have taken the liberty of sending Orion on assignment for the next week,_ Dr Three wrote. _He has done an excellent job as security. He will benefit from a while away from the students._

Kurst had taken the bait, then. There was no other assignment it could be.

 _I expect him to be in a suitable condition to resume his duties when I return,_ Yassen replied.

 _You trained him well. It is merely a meeting. It will be an educational experience for him._

It would if everything went according to plans. Alex had done a good job when he had hunted down the few remaining weaknesses in Yu's defences. Yassen hoped he would manage the same with Kurst now.

He did not tell Alex to be careful when the boy contacted him. They couldn't risk it. He assumed Alex knew, anyway. He had trained him well enough for that.

Yassen himself had spent the time preparing for the attack on Mikato's home. SCORPIA contacts were too risky to use now but he had plenty of his own after a decade and a half in that line of work. A suitable amount of money ensured they had the supplies they wanted. Heavy body armour. Appropriate weapons like the 20mm rifles and suitable ammunition – he sent Shale off for two days to practice with one of the rifles on the other side of Japan – and a decent amount of explosives.

It would not be easy, but it could be done. A serious enough strike would flush Mikato out. They simply had to wait for the man to appear again and coordinate the attack when Alex reported back on Kurst.

It was simple enough in theory. Yassen had enough experience to know that the wait would be far worse than it sounded.

* * *

Yassen knew things had not gone according to plan when Dr Three called. The mere fact that it was a phone call and not a simple message spoke volumes.

Hesitation would not make bad news any less disagreeable. Yassen picked up the phone before it could ring twice.

Dr Three, like Yassen himself, did not bother with pleasantries.

" _Zeljan is dead. Orion is en route to the hospital in Omsk. He was shot in his left lung but is in stable condition."_

Yassen went still for several heartbeats. Only the last few words of the doctor's update allowed him to breathe a little easier again. _Stable condition._ Alex would survive. He would recover. Yassen didn't doubt it. That luck of the devil. It would take months, but Alex would recover. Yassen wasn't blind to the realities of that sort of injury – Alex was lucky to be alive at all – but the fact that he was stable enough to transfer to an actual hospital was reassuring on its own. Enough so that Yassen could afford to push those concerns aside for now and focus on more practical issues.

"Details?" He was well aware that sometimes plans did not work out, but things had gone rather fast from 'on schedule' to – significantly worse.

" _Zeljan targeted Orion's former housekeeper in his games. A small test. We both expected he would try something but nothing quite that personal. Orion was ordered to shoot her but targeted Zeljan and his bodyguard instead. The rest of Zeljan's security detail had travelled ahead to prepare for the week. Neither Orion nor his housekeeper would have survived otherwise. He instructed her to call me. A cover story has been arranged and the base where it happened has been put in lockdown for the moment. We do, however, have very little time left now."_

Yassen agreed with that assessment. It was one thing to put Malagosto in lockdown. An entire base … it was merely a matter of time before information leaked. Once that happened, it was a short path to Mikato's ear.

They had expected that Kurst would test – target – Alex. Even Alex himself had accepted as much. They had not expected him to go quite that far. To hunt down one of the few links to Alex's past, a woman the child had not even spoken to in a year or seen in a year and a half.

To target Kurst and his bodyguard had been … risky. Reckless. As had contacting Dr Three afterwards to get out of the mess. It had saved Alex's life but it should never have been necessary in the first place. Yassen was not blind to the heavy debt Alex now owed on his own and Starbright's behalf in the name of survival. Even then, Yassen couldn't blame him. He would have words with him, but he couldn't blame him. Yassen was the one who had permitted those attachments to remain and the one who should have known better.

Dr Three's thoughts seemed to run in the same direction.

" _You can hardly blame him. You permitted him to remain Alex Rider and such was the reaction he defaulted to when he felt he had no other option left. He is still but a child at the heart of it."_

Fifteen. Sixteen soon, though he had come dangerously close to not seeing that birthday at all. He might still not, if something went wrong.

"Is the situation stable?"

" _For now,"_ Dr Three agreed. _"For the moment, he is guarded by our people there, and the medical staff at the hospital are competent. I will arrange for any issues with Zeljan's security detail to be resolved. The official story is that Zeljan's bodyguard was an undercover agent who acted when Orion's housekeeper spotted him. You did an excellent job when you recruited both of them in London."_

Starbright's cover would be that of a SCORPIA mole, then. Yassen's lips twitched slightly, a little amused in spite of everything. It would work well enough for now. Later … later, he would deal with the potential complications that would follow Starbright. Those attachments again. The only person left in the world with perhaps a stronger claim to Alex's loyalty than Yassen himself. It could easily become a problem, but that was something to handle later.

"I will arrange for a security team for him," he responded to the implied message. Danube and commander Hill, if they would not be too difficult to extract from whatever assignment they were currently on. Alex would appreciate familiar company. Yassen needed Sagitta with him to handle Mikato, and there was a definite deadline to that now. "Kurst's second in command?"

" _Unknown. He should have been with the rest of the security detail but he is suspected to be behind Starbright's kidnapping. He will be found."_ Yassen didn't doubt that. The doctor was not one to permit loose ends. _"I will arrange for a medical transport to Malagosto when Orion is well enough to travel. Given his injuries, I would say five days to a week. The initial report did not mention obvious complications. We will know once he is out of surgery."_

Alex Rider would be safer at the school, at least. Yassen could only imagine Starbright's reaction to it all, but he suspected she would play her role for Alex's sake and her own safety.

"I will handle Mikato."

One way or the other.

The connection was cut. Yassen put the phone away. Considered the situation. Then he summoned his team.

* * *

Marcus could say the situation had gone downhill pretty fast, but to be fair, he was pretty sure it had gone downhill the moment they had left Orion behind as Dr Three's hostage. He had known it was a bad idea the moment he found out. Gregorovich could call the kid the doctor's 'apprentice' and tell them that Orion would be treated well as much as he wanted; Marcus still wasn't going to trust a word of it until he saw the kid safe and unharmed again.

And the chance of that had just dropped to zero.

Shot in the chest, no complications during surgery but months of recovery ahead, Zeljan Kurst dead – Sagitta hadn't been given all that many details but they got enough. Enough to know that the timetable had just been moved up by a lot and that they had to act soon. Brendan Chase was one thing. Kurst … no military base was completely secure. Someone would talk and Mikato had to be dead before that happened.

Days at the most. They couldn't afford any delays now. They had the attack planned out already but Mikato still had to show up. The man didn't have habits, not really, but he did visit frequently. With some luck, he would be there again within a day or two.

If not … Marcus didn't like their chances against the speed of gossip. Mikato was the last obstacle and the most dangerous one if he realised he was the last one left. Nothing to lose. No incentive to let SCORPIA survive to pass into the hands of Gregorovich and Dr Three.

Life had been so much easier when they had just been a normal combat team. More boring, too, he would admit, and it had paid a lot less, but … easier. Simpler.

Shale returned the day after Kurst's death.

Mikato returned shortly before noon three long, restless days after that – to check up on progress on the house, Marcus assumed. They caught a glimpse of him as he arrived; enough to confirm their target. Based on previous visits, they had the afternoon to act. Maybe the day after as well, but that was not guaranteed. They had the element of surprise on their side and if they were lucky, security that wasn't quite up to its usual standards what with the sheer amount of upgrades and construction happening. They had spent a month watching Mikato's visits, his security, and his men. They knew the schedules, they knew the patrol patterns, they knew the best places to strike, and they knew roughly the amount of people present.

They didn't know the interior of the place. They didn't know what Mikato might have hidden away that they didn't know about. And what they did know about were all pretty effective security measures.

Marcus would have preferred a bit of a longer notice before the attack. He had accepted that they wouldn't have it. If they didn't act immediately, Mikato might very well leave and if he did … by the time he came back, he could easily have found out about Kurst. They were already cutting it dangerously close.

Marcus wasn't a big fan of heavy-duty body armour but in this case he was downright grateful for the sets Gregorovich had arranged for. Solid, high-quality, and they allowed for as much movement as anything like that could. It would have to be good enough. With Orion's injury as a reminder in the back of their minds, none of his team complained, either. They preferred the lighter stuff but this would do just fine.

With Shale under Gregorovich's direct command and intended to help target Mikato's transportation, that left six of them to handle the main attack and make it look like a far larger force. A serious enough attack to flush Mikato out of his little hidey-hole and remove any thought the man might have of staying through the attack.

At least they had the supplies for it. Gregorovich was a generous boss like that.

The plan was already decided on as well. Take out as many guards as possible from long-range, proceed with grenades – fragmentation and explosive. No smoke grenades, since they wanted a clear view of the place, but gas grenades were an option. There had been a number of tear gas grenades in the ammunition crate, and that would keep up the impression that they wanted Mikato alive. Another incentive for the man to leave the place like they wanted him to. With some luck, that should be enough to flush him out, before they had to get any closer to the house.

They moved fast and spoke very little, focused on the task at hand. Everyone already knew exactly what their job would be and they had limited time to handle everything in. Shale would be with Gregorovich, targeting Mikato. Marcus had caught a good look at the two rifles and the ammunition for them and whatever armour Mikato's car had, he didn't doubt those things would make short work of it.

Two hours after Mikato's arrival, everything was ready. Their escape was set, as much incriminating evidence as possible had been removed, and the team was in position.

There was plenty of activity in and around the house but none of the activity Marcus had learned to associate with Mikato's imminent departure. Based on the time the man had spent at the house so far, they would have at least another hour, but there was no reason to push it.

Marcus did a final check. Then he radioed Gregorovich.

"Sir, Sagitta in position."

" _Copy. On your mark, commander."_

Shale and Gregorovich were in position, too, then. One last, long look at the house that was their target; at the guards and the construction workers and the heavy machinery. Then Marcus took a slow breath.

"Sagitta, on my mark. In five -"

They all had their targets and Marcus found his easily. He was not a good sniper but he was good enough for this.

"- four, three, two -"

Spread out in a half-circle formation, the rest of his team focused on similar targets.

"- one -"

Marcus' finger tightened slightly.

" - fire."

The sounds of gunshots came so close together they almost became one; six perfectly timed shots. Shale couldn't risk dividing his attention between two targets, but the rest of them weren't bad shots and the distance wasn't that bad. Jarek had hit his target, Marcus didn't doubt it, and if the rest of them missed one, well, it wasn't the end of the world.

He found his second target just as chaos started to descend on the grounds and fired in the same heartbeat. It was one thing with highly-trained guards that knew how to react to an attack. It was something else entirely to add a number of civilians to the mix.

The third target he picked at random, one of the men he had pinpointed as being in charge of one of the construction crews. Their plans had taken into account that predicting anything past a shot or two would be impossible and any good targets past that were really just a bonus.

The gunshots came in a steady wall of sound now as his team found their targets. Some missed, Marcus was sure, and some weren't immediately fatal, but enough hit to make a difference. Take out the trained guards and the people in charge and let chaos do the rest.

To one side of the carefully-designed grounds, the first fragmentation grenade landed, followed almost immediately after by an explosive grenade aimed at the fence. Two tear gas grenades landed right in the middle of the grounds and added to the general confusion.

Marcus managed to hit another target before too many people had found cover for that approach to be effective anymore.

"Sagitta, clear for phase two."

He made sure the entire team checked in before he left his position and headed to Mace's location, meeting the man halfway there. The gunshots came from both sides by now. The survivors in charge of security had obviously managed to get things under control enough to manage some sort of counter-attack. The sound of grenades joined in again, though Marcus wasn't sure if those were only their own.

Switch locations, make themselves less of an obvious target, and start to target any stray enemies as well as the house and security itself. If Mikato was smart and his security detail knew their shit, they would start to consider getting the hell out of there before it became impossible. Stay and hold the place or leave while they could. Gregorovich gambled on the latter. Marcus figured he had enough experience with the executive board to know.

The sound of gunfire from their side had slowed down as the team moved. The gunfire from the house had, too – either from a lack of visible targets or because Marcus' team had picked off a number of the biggest threats already and the rest weren't nearly as good.

Marcus and Mace moved closer to the building. Still within the shelter of the forest, still in camouflage, but slightly more exposed than before. Not much, but enough.

Marcus got no warning, just a sudden, blindingly sharp punch to his chest, and the air was knocked out of his lungs in an instant. It wasn't the pain of a bullet wound, not the right sort for that, but it was definitely the pain of a sniper bullet against a ballistic vest and probably a couple of broken ribs as well.

For a moment Marcus couldn't breathe; the sheer pain blocking out everything else. Then he managed a rasping breath and felt the world come back into focus a little in a cacophony of impressions.

" _-iper, roof, left side; take him out -"_

Marcus stumbled, the world still unsteady from the pain of the impact. Then someone grabbed him and pulled him behind cover before he could fall.

Mace came into focus as he opened Marcus' uniform with swift motions. "Boss?"

" _\- got him -"_

"... Fuck me," Marcus managed to wheeze. Nice body armour. Fucking _hell_ , it still hurt. He didn't know what sort of ammunition that sniper had used but it was definitely bigger than normal.

"I'll pass, thank you." Practised hands undid the body armour to get a look beneath and let Marcus breathe a little easier. It still hurt like fuck and Mace's quick examination of his chest didn't help.

"... _Fuck_ ," he wheezed again when Mace hit a particularly sore spot. The lack of a response to that comment made Marcus look up.

"It looks like at least one broken rib to me and one hell of a spectacular bruise," Mace answered the silent question. "You're going to feel like shit tomorrow. It's probably more than just one broken rib, too, frankly, but I can't tell for sure without a scan. You might be lucky and it's just a couple of severely bruised ribs, but I'd put my money on broken. I don't think you've got internal injuries, but we still need to get you checked out."

Right. Marcus couldn't find it in him to argue. He had been shot before where the body armour had handled it and that hadn't hurt nearly as much. Fucking hell, he didn't know what kind of ammunition that had been, but he really didn't want to go for a second round. Luck and high-calibre ammunition meant the sniper had gone for centre mass; that kind of target combined with the heavy body armour was the only reason Marcus was even alive. He really didn't want to take his chances with another hit.

"Can you move?"

Marcus gritted his teeth. "Really don't want to."

Mace nodded. "Not surprised. Two options. You stay here until we're done and can get you somewhere with a decent scanner and make sure you're not about to puncture something important. Second option, good painkillers. I'm pretty sure your ribs are broken but I don't think they're about to puncture your lungs or any arteries. I'm not going to let you run around, but you get to sit here and play around with your nice, shiny rifle and get some target practice so long as you're careful with the recoil."

Marcus snorted and instantly regretted it. That hurt. "Pretty sure they'd revoke your medical license for that sort of thing. Dope up your patients and give them a weapon?"

"Good thing I don't have one. Painkillers, then?"

"By all means," Marcus agreed with a grand wave of his hand. That hurt a little, too.

Mace had obvious expected it, because he had jabbed a needle in Marcus less than thirty seconds later and touched his headset.

"Sagitta, this is Mace. The boss is going to sit the rest of it out. Probably broken ribs, otherwise his usual charming self. Adams has command."

Marcus felt the pain in his chest ease, though he wasn't about to go take any risks. Just brought out his rifle again and focused on the house as Mace vanished into the forest again. It was a bit of a pain to be a man down in an already hard operation but they would cope. They always did.

* * *

" _Sagitta, this is Mace. The boss is going to sit the rest of it out. Probably broken ribs, otherwise his usual charming self. Adams has command."_

The words registered at the edge of Shale's awareness, focused on the house and their surroundings as he was. He had heard the warning about the sniper but had trusted Jarek to handle it.

"Copy," he replied.

Gregorovich didn't move, didn't react in any way. Shale hadn't expected him to, either. They were safely hidden, though Gregorovich trusted him to watch their backs. Shale didn't mind. He was a good sniper but Gregorovich was better.

It was an unfamiliar feeling to be behind a sniper rifle, with his team in the middle of combat, and not be watching their backs. Unfamiliar and a bit uncomfortable. Shale had a job to do, though, and stayed focused on it. He didn't dare do anything else in Gregorovich's company. He paid attention to the voices on the headset and watched the result of the attack on the house, but otherwise he stayed focused on the target.

If Mikato waited much longer, it would become clear that his attackers had no intentions of getting any closer to the house. From there, it was not a stretch that someone would figure out it was a set-up and a much smaller force behind it than it seemed. Every minute without sight of their target was a minute closer to failure. They didn't have enough people to take over the compound, and the longer the attack stretched out, the bigger the risk one of their own got killed. The boss had certainly come close enough.

The rifle was larger and heavier than most Shale was used to, but it was not the first time he had worked with a calibre like that and the two days of training had removed any unfamiliarity with the weapon. A new, clever piece of hardware that Shale kind of wished he could keep. It was overkill for his usual targets but perfect for this sort of prey. It made for an interesting change of pace.

The sound of gunfire, almost lost through his ear protection, had mostly died down. Sagitta wasn't going to waste unnecessary ammunition on targets they couldn't spot and Mikato's security obviously followed that same belief. The grounds were wrecked, dotted with dead bodies and the scars of grenades, but the air was still startlingly clear. Some smoke where explosive grenades had set something on fire, but mostly clear. With the wind leading any smoke away, Shale had a clear view of the road. They had picked a spot a bit away from the house; far enough removed from the place that by the time they attacked, any potential decoy car would be far enough away that the road would have been deemed safe and Mikato himself would have appeared.

Finally there was a glimpse of movement.

" _Target sighted."_ Gregorovich's voice was little more than a murmur but still carried easily through the headset.

Shale shifted slightly. Focused on the car that appeared at the back of the house, away from the main attack.

The licence plate matched the one they had seen every time Mikato arrived, not that something like that was any guarantee. The plates could have been switched or there could be two cars with identical plates, and certainly in a situation like this.

No matter. They would watch it closely and see.

Someone with less calm nerves and experience might have taken the shot sooner. Further down the road it was a harder shot to take, but that played to their advantage. Mikato's people would expect that anyone waiting to target their boss would do so in a location that gave the best chance of a clean shot, and that would be much closer to the house.

Every second the car put between itself and the house without incident would hopefully see them relax just a little. Let them believe that the car wouldn't be targeted.

Past the secondary gate and the guards that had taken cover there – Shale and Gregorovich had deliberately not targeted them to avoid giving away their position – and out on the road.

One turn. Two. The car moved like the beautiful piece of engineering Shale knew it was, meant to carry half a ton or more of armour and only show it to the most trained of observers.

The car approached the third turn on the winding road. There was still no further movement from the house. Shale's finger rested a hairsbreadth above the trigger as he waited for Gregorovich's command. It came a moment later.

" _Fire in three -"_

The car slowed down slightly. Reached the turn -

" _\- two, one -"_

The shots came all but simultaneously, aimed at the engine and the driver. Most cars would find it rather difficult to keep going with a 20mm round through the engine, and the driver – even a graze would likely be lethal with that kind of ammunition and most likely render that side extremely exposed at best and entirely unusable at worst.

Shale knew he had hit the engine before the bullet even reached it. Gregorovich's round slammed into the windscreen, shattered the whole thing into a cobweb of white and greenish-blue, and continued straight through it.

The car turned sharply to the left, off the road and straight into the sloping ground that led to the forest. It was not a violent crash – the car had already slowed down and the engine was wrecked – and would have been perfectly survivable in any other situation.

Now, sitting in the open and in the sights of two snipers, that was an entirely different situation.

Still no movement from the house. Shale was almost certain the car was the genuine one by now.

There was little shelter near the car, little enough that they would have plenty of time to target anyone who tried to escape, and they made good use of that now. They had plenty of ammunition and a position hidden from any snipers in the main building, and Gregorovich set a steady, relentless pace. Shoot, reload, taking turns to shoot to ensure one of them was always ready to pick off any potential survivors at any given time.

A second bullet ensured with complete certainty that the engine would never work again. The following rounds began to pick apart the car itself with brutal efficiency. It really was a beautiful weapon, the rifle, and Shale wondered if he could argue for the necessity of one in his arsenal. Just in case. He could leave it at whatever base would end up as their primary one when he didn't need it. It shouldn't be too hard to argue for that sort of thing for a member of the favoured combat team of Yassen Gregorovich's second in command. Orion liked them, and Shale had seen the sort of toys Nile's combat team got to play with.

They didn't know how many people were in the car. It didn't matter. At some point whoever was still alive would take their chances and make a run for it, or the car would be destroyed to a point where nothing inside was likely to have survived.

Gregorovich stopped. Waited. Shale did the same.

Silence settled around them. He didn't hear gunshots from the house anymore, though that was likely because the sound of his own weapon had been loud enough even through the ear protection to dull his hearing just a little.

No one moved. The car was still. There were fluids leaking underneath the engine, though nothing had caught fire. The beautiful piece of engineering was riddled by an almost flawless pattern of bullet holes. Gregorovich had been right. Heavy armour but not enough to withstand the sort of ammunition that was normally used to target armoured military vehicles.

The silence stretched on. They could very well have killed everyone in the car but they still waited now to see if anyone would take the bait. Shale wasn't sure what he would have done in that situation. The car was clearly unsafe and could easily be targeted by an explosive round in its current state. Leaving was just as unsafe. How long would anyone stay in that car and hope the snipers were gone? How long before their determination broke?

" _Back, left side."_ Gregorovich's voice cut through the silence. Shale shifted his focus slightly and spotted the slightest of movements by the side most shielded from the bullets.

The door opened just enough to let out a figure, crouched down behind the car. It wasn't good shelter but Shale would admit it was as good as it got, and the man did make a decent effort to stay out of sight.

The seconds stretched on. Neither of them took the shot, not yet. It took another minute by Shale's estimate before another figure appeared, and this one he recognised as Mikato. Injured, too. The blood on his clothes could be from someone else but the way his right arm hung bloody and useless by his side left little doubt.

It could be a decoy. Shale doubted it. The tattoos were highly distinctive. Too distinctive to bother with unless Mikato had been sure a decoy would be necessary.

" _You have the bodyguard,"_ Gregorovich told him and switched to the team channel. _"Sagitta, primary target in sight. Prepare to leave."_

Shale didn't respond but merely shifted his focus to the unknown figure by the car. The sort of rounds they used were meant as anti-material, not anti-personnel; fundamentally inefficient against human targets compared to normal sniper rifles, but that made them no less lethal. No less accurate. Shale did not even have to consider where to target the man. Centre mass would do just fine. There was no body armour in the world capable of saving someone from a 20mm round.

The two figures stayed in cover. Discussing the best course of action, Shale assumed, combined with an uncertainty about any more attackers. They could take the shots now. It would take a bit more skill and they might hit the roof of the car, but it could be done.

They didn't. They had time now. Mikato had come out of his hidey-hole and had nowhere to run anymore. The rest of the team would already be preparing to leave. The attack had done its job. The rest of the place didn't matter.

Maybe the sudden pause in gunfire as Sagitta fell back was the incentive Mikato and his bodyguard needed to move. Maybe they interpreted it as a chance to make a break for it. Then again, Shale supposed they didn't have much choice. They couldn't stay there forever.

The bodyguard moved first. Shale kept him firmly within his sights and waited for the order.

A heartbeat. Mikato moved as well, right at the edge of Shale's awareness.

" _Fire."_

Shale pulled the trigger the instant he got the order; heard Gregorovich's rifle the second before his own.

Fundamentally inefficient against human targets and ridiculous overkill, but absolutely lethal. Shale's bullet hit the man perfectly in the middle of the back, right at heart level, but with ammunition of that size, he could have hit anywhere around chest-level and been guaranteed a lethal shot.

" _Sagitta, primary target eliminated. Follow protocols."_

Gregorovich, of course, had been no less accurate. The difference between an intelligence agent and an assassin on the executive board, Shale supposed. Intelligence agents liked their games. Assassins like Gregorovich favoured the practical approach. The executive board had been in Gregorovich's way. The board was known for its lethal politics. Gregorovich had settled for merely lethal.

Shale rested a hand on the rifle. It really was a beautiful piece of weaponry. Maybe he could keep it.

For now, they had evidence to remove and a grouchy commander to pick up before they could finally – _finally_ – get out of there with another successful assignment to their name.

* * *

Next: Back to Malagosto


	66. Introductions

Alex and Jack arrived in Abu Dhabi a bit before noon. Dr Javadi stayed with them for the last stretch of the trip to Malagosto, but Commander Hill and his team left them at the airport after entrusting their security to several of SCORPIA's guards instead.

"Listen to your doctor," Hill told Alex before they left, "and try not to get shot again. I really don't want another conversation like that with Mr Gregorovich."

Alex could vividly imagine just what sort of conversation that would be. Short, professional, and chilling, with all sorts of implied threats as to what exactly would happen should Alex come to any further harm.

"I'll try," he agreed. "I'm kind of grounded for the next four months, anyway." And that was the best-case scenario.

He could almost feel Jack's unspoken comment of how likely he was to listen to _that,_ though she kept it to herself.

Hill smiled and vanished with his team. Dr Javadi led Alex and Jack to the large car waiting for them outside the airport. No one spoke on the drive to the school. The traffic was heavy, though Alex didn't mind the delay. He could already feel that exhaustion settling in again. All he wanted to do was sleep. Normally he would get restless doing nothing. He suspected that this time, just resting for a week or two would be no problem at all.

Eventually they left the city. The compound came into view. Jack reached over and held Alex's hand tightly for a moment, brief and reassuring. Then the car came to a halt and they got out.

Six hours ago, they had left the Russian winter behind. Now they were in a pleasant, temperate climate instead that made Alex grateful for the change of clothes they had been given. Plain, anonymous ones, but a lot more comfortable than the heavy winter clothes would have been.

Dr Javadi led them to Dr Three's building. Alex caught a glimpse of a few of the students but no one approached them, though he wasn't really surprised about that. The doctor got up from behind his desk when they arrived and exchanged a few, low words with Javadi before she handed over a thick medical file.

Dr Three smiled. "Excellent. Thank you, doctor."

Javadi nodded and left with a brief nod to Alex and Jack. The door closed behind her and they were entirely alone with Dr Three. Alex had no idea of what to expect – the doctor had been the one to get them out of that base and had arranged for transport out of Russia as well, had stepped in when Alex had no other options, but that didn't have to mean anything now.

Alex took a deep breath. "Sir."

"Orion," Dr Three greeted. His voice sounded as kind as always, though Alex knew that meant absolutely nothing. "And Ms Starbright. It's a delight to finally meet the woman who had such a large hand in raising young Orion here. He is a remarkable child."

Even warned about it in advance, Alex could pick up on Jack's unsettled feeling about the doctor's kind demeanour. Alex had not censored his stories. It wasn't the sort of thing he wanted Jack to deal with but they couldn't afford to leave her with any delusions about the man. He _had_ left out the part about the large debt he owed the doctor now. That was something Alex would deal with on his own, though he was sure Yassen would have something to say about that, too.

"... Thank you," she settled for. "For getting us out of Russia, too."

"It was the least I could do for such a promising student." Dr Three's attention focused on Alex, and there was something in his eyes that Alex could only interpret as genuine satisfaction. "You will be pleased to know that Mikato is dead. The attack took place while you were in the air. Yassen is quite unharmed. There are some minor injuries on your combat team, but nothing life-threatening. If all goes according to plan, they will land sometime tonight."

Something in Alex's chest eased that had nothing to do with his injuries. Alive. Safe. Nothing life-threatening. Yassen was alive. Sagitta was alive. And Mikato was dead. Six weeks of tension started to melt away in that moment; the knowledge that at least some of it was _over._

There was still the matter of Jack's safety, of course. And Tom's, because Jack had already been made a target, and the agreement was that they would be kept safe, but that was _after_ Yassen took over SCORPIA, and even Alex hadn't imagined someone would want to target them now. And then there was the question of what would happen next, and probably a dozen other things that Alex had forgotten, but for now -

\- They were alive and safe. All of them.

"Thank you, sir." Alex made no attempt to hide his relief. Maybe some of Sagitta would end up on medical leave, just like Alex would, but they were _alive._

Dr Three smiled. In that moment, he looked genuinely harmless. Then his attention returned to Jack.

"You should be proud of him, Ms Starbright. He is a remarkably skilled operative. I expect you have not yet had the chance to reassure your parents of your well-being. I trust Orion will see to that and warn you of any restrictions. I'm afraid that politics being what they are, you will not be able to return home immediately. Consider yourself a guest of SCORPIA and Malagosto for the time being."

As Alex had expected and warned Jack about. She didn't look happy but they also both knew how much worse it could have been. Kurst had proven that.

"He's a good kid," Jack agreed and settled for the safe option. She didn't ask how long she would be a _guest,_ nor did the she add any of the biting comments Alex knew she wanted to make. For now, Dr Three was prepared to be the generous host. Neither of them wanted to risk doing anything to change that.

"An exceptionally skilled one," the doctor agreed and clearly chose the other interpretation of 'good' than Jack did. "Orion, your room remains as it was. Ms Starbright, you have been given the one next to Orion's. I expect you wish to remain close."

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed.

"... Thank you," Jack added, a heartbeat later.

A slight nod. Dr Three seemed satisfied for the moment. "We will talk tomorrow once Yassen has returned. Dismissed."

The outside seemed a little brighter now that their initial meeting was over, though Alex was sure Dr Three would want a _talk_ about things later without Jack present. Jack seemed to breathe a little easier, too.

During the brief walk to the guest building, Alex just enjoyed the fresh air. He didn't move very fast and he felt pretty winded but he supposed he couldn't complain since he had been shot through one lung less than a week ago. Everything considered, he should be happy to be breathing at all.

Dinner wasn't for another good few hours, though Alex was pretty sure he was in no shape to deal with the dining hall. He would probably hide in his room instead with Jack. He definitely wasn't about to let her deal with the place alone.

Dr Javadi would be by as well; the schedule Alex had been given had been pretty clear on things like rehabilitation and check-ups. Mostly he would be due at Malagosto's small clinic but the doctor wanted to make sure there was nothing in his room that could prove a problem.

Another reminder that he had some long months ahead of him before he was entirely okay again.

Neither spoke on the walk, though Alex did see Jack glance around, sharp eyes taking in their surroundings. He couldn't imagine she would have done the same a year and a half ago. He blamed the CIA for that.

"Were they really bad about surveillance?" he asked quietly. He didn't specify the 'they' in question but Jack got it, anyway.

"For the most part they were pretty upfront about it. I think Byrne decided that was easier. I didn't get too many creepy stalker types."

 _Didn't get too many_. There had been some, then. Alex knew the sheer paranoia it could cause to know you were under surveillance by someone you couldn't see and couldn't stop, to know that someone was watching your every move, and he could feel his skin crawl at the thought.

"Sorry," he said again. He couldn't think of anything else to say.

"It isn't your fault."

"It kind of is," Alex admitted quietly. "If I hadn't left with Yassen ..."

"If you hadn't left, you might've been dead." Jack's expression did not invite any arguments. "Blame Blunt, that's what I do. You were fourteen and we both know they would never have left you alone. You should have been in school, not sent halfway across the world because someone decided a child agent was useful."

Neither of them mentioned the fact that SCORPIA had done the exact same thing, though Alex supposed they at least had the decency to train him first.

Like when they arrived, they were spotted by several of the students but no one approached them. The added caution and respect after Chase's murder clearly still lingered. For once Alex didn't mind. He just wanted to get to his room and rest.

"So this is where you stayed?" Jack asked quietly. "After Russia? They tried to keep me up to date, probably in case you showed up, though who knows how much of it was actually true. I usually kicked them out."

"Three months," Alex agreed. It wasn't like it was a secret. "I spent five months in Russia with Yassen, but there was stuff he couldn't teach me, and SCORPIA wanted to see if I could manage on my own. It – wasn't bad. I mean, I was a lot younger than everyone else, but they were nice company."

 _For assassin trainees, anyway._ He didn't say that, either, and didn't need to. The entire conversation was turning into a horribly awkward thing of half-spoken sentences.

The guest quarters were quiet and familiar and Alex led Jack inside. "This building is reserved for guests. The students tend to get woken up for surprise night-time exercises pretty regularly, so this is a lot more quiet. Fewer people, too." Just the two of them for the moment, in fact.

Like Dr Three had said, the room next to Alex's had been prepared for Jack. She had no luggage except for a small stack of winter clothes from their stay in Omsk – he didn't know if she had picked them herself or if someone had bought them for her – but someone had obviously been aware of that. There was a second small stack of clothes on the bed and an assortment of toiletries.

"... That's a little creepy," Jack said after she held up a blouse and found that it was her size. Alex wasn't all that surprised. Neutral-looking clothes but nice quality. At least they didn't have a scorpion brand on them.

"Don't think too much about it," he advised.

Jack picked up another bit of clothing. "Alex, a terrorist organisation knows my size in _underwear._ "

Alex could feel the flush creep up his neck and looked away. Ladies' underwear was one thing. He was used to that from Cheshire's outfits and didn't really think about it anymore. It was just part of that disguise. It was something else entirely when combined with someone he knew. Jack laughed, the first genuine laugh he had heard from her since London, and she reached out to ruffle his hair.

"I've packed it away again. All safe now, Mr Teenage Assassin."

For a moment, life was normal again. For a moment, they were back in Chelsea, before Sayle. Before MI6. Before Cornwall. It hurt more than Alex thought it would.

He cleared his throat. "Right."

He watched as Jack explored the room, a mirror of his own. It really did look like nothing more than a high-end hotel room. Like Alex's, it was a very luxurious cage.

When she returned, he handed her his phone. He was about due for a new one, anyway.

"You should probably call your parents. It's kind of early in the morning over there, but I doubt they'll mind. Everything you tell them will be dissected by SCORPIA and the CIA at the very least," Alex warned her. "Probably MI6 as well. Assume everywhere in this place is under surveillance as well. Just assume that anything you say will be recorded and someone will know about it, and you're probably right. Keep it below four minutes. Anything more, and they're likely to track it."

Jack nodded. Took a deep breath. Alex didn't blame her. She wanted to reassure her parents. She was also in the uncomfortable situation where anything she said might be used against her – or Alex, or her parents – and she knew it. Say the wrong thing, and Alex could easily become even more of a target than he already was.

She managed the number from memory alone, hand trembling slightly as she lifted the phone to her ear. Long seconds ticked by. Then Jack inhaled, sharp and shuddering.

"Mom?" she asked, and in that moment her accent was every bit the American college student Alex had first met at seven.

Alex retreated to the other side of the room to give at least the illusion of privacy. He listened with half an ear, just to make sure she didn't say anything dangerous on accident, and he kept an eye on the time, but for the most part he tried to just ignore Jack's side of the conversation. He felt uncomfortably like he was intruding on something but without being able to leave, either.

Jack hung up at the three-thirty mark. Took another shuddering breath and seemed to steel herself before she handed over the phone.

"Thank you."

Alex wasn't sure how reassured her parents would be, how much they or anyone else would believe that Jack was safe for now, but he knew it was better than the endless silence. He still felt bad for the long months when Jack had known nothing but his note and cherry-picked updates from MI6 and the CIA.

"It's … better than nothing," he said quietly. "I don't know how long you'll have to stay here, but – it's something, at least."

He felt Jack's fingers in his hair again, familiar and soothing. "It's something," she agreed. "Thank you for calling me. Four minutes isn't much, but like you said, it's a lot better than nothing."

For a while they just stayed there, until Jack shook her head. "You're dead on your feet. Go rest," she ordered.

She had a point. Maybe. Probably. He really just wanted to curl up and nap for an hour or three. The exhaustion lingered, his mind and reflexes much slower than they should be, and his body sore and sluggish.

Alex headed to his room under Jack's watchful eye. She glanced around briefly but didn't comment on the remarkably neat state of the place. Yassen had very little patience for laziness and sloppiness, and Alex had learned that the hard way in Russia. It wasn't like he had that much in the room to make a mess with, anyway. Most of what he owned was in storage, and that wasn't much in the first place.

The bed was nice and comfortable and familiar; a huge monstrosity that could easily fit two or three people. Alex considered his plan of attack before he carefully settled down, then set his alarm and pulled one of the blankets close.

Jack arched an eyebrow at the alarm. "Alex …"

Alex shook his head. He remembered his schedule. "Dr Javadi will be by before dinner."

Which still gave him a good, long while to sleep. He would be hungry by then, he was sure – starved, more likely – but right now he really just wanted to sleep. Jack watched the bed for long seconds. Then she sighed, kicked off her shoes, and curled up as well on the other side.

She was probably as exhausted as he was, Alex realised. Not physically but mentally. The strain of days of uncertainty that had only eased a little bit now. Laying down, finally resting, Alex could see the faint lines of stress in her features fade a little, and he closed his eyes as well. The company was nice. He wasn't sure he wanted to be alone right now and he suspected Jack didn't want to be, either.

The next thing he knew was the sound of his alarm. Jack got to it before he could. The sunlight outside had shifted to early evening and Alex's groggy mind took a second to recall where he was. Malagosto. Jack. Dr Javadi.

Right. Alex got out of bed on his own under Jack's watchful eye and mindful of his injuries and felt better than he had in a while. He could easily have slept through the night but he felt – better. More awake. More like himself.

Someone knocked on the door. Dr Javadi let herself in without waiting for an answer, medical bag in hand. Crux followed behind her, a heavily-loaded food tray in her hands.

"Orion," the doctor greeted as Crux settled the tray on the table. "Let's take a look at things."

It took only a few minutes for her to check the state of his health and somewhat longer to hunt through the room for anything that might be an issue. It was a bit of a relief when she finally gave it the all-clear. Alex hadn't really expected anything else. The bed was large and comfortable. The bathroom was brand new and gave him plenty of room to move about. Jack got a thorough list of instructions as well for things to keep an eye out for before Dr Javadi was finally satisfied and left them with Crux.

Alex glanced at the tray. Faced with actual food, the lingering tiredness could wait a little.

"I brought enough for both of you. I suspected you would not feel up to dealing with the students," Crux explained.

An understatement if Alex had ever heard it. A part of him had dreaded the crowds. Eating in the quiet of his room sounded a lot better. He doubted the students would be any danger to him or Jack, but he didn't have the energy to deal with it. Not now.

"Thank you," Alex said. Based on Crux's smile, his feelings probably showed a little more than they should. "Crux, this is Jack. She pretty much raised me from I was seven, when my uncle started to leave a lot on missions. Jack, this is Crux. She taught me about disguises. She's the reason one of my passports is for a teenage girl. She's one of the instructors here."

Alex had gone over as much as he could during the flight, but there had been a lot to cover. It didn't hurt with a few keywords to help Jack's memory. He had tried to keep a balance between necessity and the things he didn't want to talk about, but he had still erred on the side of caution, just in case. It might have been a few too many details in some cases but better than to leave her unprepared.

Alex had told Jack exactly what Crux taught, too. The slight tension in her body told him that she remembered that part just fine.

"Ms Starbright." Crux sounded genuinely happy to meet her. "It's a pleasure to meet the female influence on Orion. He is a delight to teach. You've done a wonderful job raising him."

Like with Dr Three, Alex could almost feel how uncomfortable Jack was with having her child-rearing skills complimented by a wanted terrorist. She couldn't exactly argue, though. Sure, there had been vacations and travels and weeks and months when Ian was home. But he had hired a house-keeper and nanny for a reason. In everyday life, Jack had been the one to get Alex up in the mornings, to ask about his homework, to make sure he got breakfast, to keep the fridge stocked, and cook for the two of them when Ian had yet another late evening at work. She had been the one to listen to his complaints about school, to his stories of football matches, to put up with him and Tom when they made a mess of his room.

 _The female influence on Orion_. The only real one he'd had for most of his life. Crux had been the only other real one, and that could be counted in weeks and months and not years.

Not that the _male_ influence was much better. Ian, for most of his life. Yassen, now.

Alex Rider had always been a self-sufficient child, because of Ian's training and necessity both. Sometimes he wondered where the divide between self-sufficient and lonely was.

"... Thank you," Jack said. "He's a good kid."

 _Desperate for attention and approval_ , Alex's mind added. He had been around Dr Three for long enough to acknowledge as much about himself. The psychological evaluations in his SCORPIA files said much the same. He didn't doubt Jack had spotted the same thing about him when she had moved in. Jack's presence had helped, an adult who actually paid attention, but Ian's attention and approval had always remained something fickle and elusive.

"An attentive student," Crux agreed. "And exceptionally bright."

She smiled. Sometimes when she did, she looked so genuinely normal and harmless that Alex almost forgot what she was capable of and the skills that had seen her transferred to Dr Three's command. Almost.

"Rest," Crux told him. "You have a lot of recovery to do. I trust Ms Starbright will make sure you eat your dinner."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Jack said dryly.

Crux smiled again and left them alone. Jack set to splitting up the mountain of food on the tray. Alex realised how much he had missed familiar food like that.

"So, do I assume this is all poisoned?" she asked.

It had probably been partially a joke but Alex answered like the legitimate question it was in a place like Malagosto.

"Probably not. If Dr Three wanted me dead, he would just have shot me," Alex said bluntly. Or used him for a research subject, but he didn't say that out loud. Graff's drug could have been an issue, too, but not for one meal, and it wouldn't be all that useful. Especially not now that Alex knew just how strong the doctor's hold was on him – him, and every other graduate out there.

Jack sighed. "I could have done with just 'no'."

"Sorry." Well, that was mostly the truth. Alex felt bad for telling her stuff like that, but she needed to know.

Silence settled as they both dug into their food. Whatever other complaints Alex might have had about his time at the school, the food had always been great. He supposed it would almost have to be, with the sort of tuition rates they charged and the amount of calories the students needed on a daily basis.

His chest still hurt a little even with the painkillers and he had to be careful, but he still managed to finish his plate in record time and looked up to find Jack watching him with an expression that was both fond and sad and a little wistful.

"Teenage boys and their food," she said softly and reached out to brush his cheek. "Oh, Alex. They really did a number on you, didn't they? You're fifteen. You're not supposed to be involved in any of this."

There was really nothing Alex could say to that but his silence was answer enough.

Jack's smile was tired and a little resigned. "I always kind of hoped that somehow you would find your way out of – all of this, and things would go back to normal, but you're not coming back with me, are you? To England or the States."

To MI6 or the CIA, to Blunt or Byrne or whoever pulled Byrne's strings?

"No," Alex admitted, just as softly. "The intelligence agencies would never leave me alone and SCORPIA would never stop hunting me. And I can _do_ something here. Not just wait for Blunt or Byrne or whoever to show up to blackmail me again. SCORPIA used to work behind the scenes. It wasn't until recently the executive board decided to go for large-scale terrorist attacks, and not everyone agreed with that sort of risk. Neither Dr Three nor Yassen approve of that sort of attention. The people behind things like the attack in London last autumn, they're all dead. Kurst was one of them. It doesn't need to happen again, not by SCORPIA's hand."

And maybe it was a little risky to say with the sort of surveillance the place was under, maybe it was risky to say when it might reach the CIA or MI6 through Jack, but right there and then Alex didn't care. Kurst was dead. Mikato was dead. The executive board was down to Yassen, who already knew Alex's opinions and the price for his cooperation, and Dr Three, who might as well have been a mind reader as far as Alex was concerned. He didn't doubt the doctor had a pretty good idea of Alex's goals already.

Alex didn't know what the future would hold, he didn't know what would happen to that tentative alliance, and for once he was happy to write it off as being above his paygrade. He was in way over his head when it came to executive board politics. He would be more likely to be in the way.

Jack didn't ask him for the details. He knew she wanted to but she probably also knew she didn't really want to hear it.

Instead she just reached out and ran a hand through his hair again in a familiar gesture. "Almost sixteen," she said quietly. "You were fourteen last I saw you. You deserve better than this. A normal life."

Almost sixteen. It was his birthday soon. Just a few days away. He had almost forgotten, in the middle of everything that had happened.

"I won't have it. I lost that chance when Blunt blackmailed me that first time." Alex had accepted it a while ago. It still hurt to say it out loud. "I ended up on a number of watch lists the moment it became common knowledge outside of SCORPIA that Yassen was training me. Once I graduated, that kind of sealed it. I'm a wanted terrorist. I've killed sixteen people and looked the other way with a lot of other murders. If I leave, I'll always be hunted. If I go to the intelligence agencies, I'll still do the exact same thing, I'll just be on a lot shorter leash and a lot more expendable. They would never be able to resist using a trained assassin to handle whatever dirty little operations they don't want public. SCORPIA has been hired for that sort of thing often enough. At least here I've got Yassen to protect me."

He wanted her to understand at least a little, to explain his reasons, because he wanted at least one person to know. Wanted one person to understand. Someone who had known him as Alex Rider and knew he hadn't always been one of SCORPIA rising stars. Someone who had known him as more than just Orion, or Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice, or Malagosto's youngest ever graduate.

Jack was silent for long seconds. Alex wondered if she was about to bring up those murders. He kept expecting her to, and whatever she had to say about them, he deserved every word of it. Some had deserved it – he would never, ever regret killing Kurst, not when it meant Jack's survival – but most hadn't. They had just drawn the wrong sort of attention or been collateral damage. A business transaction, nothing more.

In the end, though, she just reached out and gripped his hand tightly, the best they could do for a hug for now. His chest really wasn't up to anything else, the one hug he had given her in the hospital had proven that. "I'm going to punch Blunt if I ever see him again," she promised.

"... If you punch him fast enough, maybe you can get in two before someone stops you." Maybe some of Blunt's people might get selectively slow to react if that happened. Alex would have been, if Blunt had been his boss.

"That would be nice, wouldn't it?" Jack sounded a little happier. "The grey bastard deserves it."

Alex decided not to share Marcus' decision to shoot Blunt in the balls if he ever got the chance. Jack would probably approve but really, no need to bring up that sort of thing in the middle of dinner.

By unspoken agreement, the conversation drifted to safer topics. They didn't stay up for long, both still exhausted despite the long nap, but Alex felt better for the company. Jack was safe in a way no one around him really was these days.

Eventually Jack retired to her own room. Alex set his alarm for seven. Yassen and Sagitta would be back sometime during the night. Alex knew they probably wouldn't come straight to the school – and if they did, Yassen would be severely displeased if Alex was actually up at that time while that injured – but he still wanted to be up in good time. Just in case. If nothing else, then for breakfast.

He was asleep the moment his head touched the pillow.

* * *

A/N: So, uh, in the interest of full disclosure, it should probably be mentioned that the author is a bit pregnant. If chapters, review replies, and stuff like that get delayed (or there are somewhat more spelling and grammar issues than usual), I blame everything on third trimester pregnancy brain. Editing takes a lot longer than usual these days.

Next: Reunions.


	67. Negotiations

Yassen and Sagitta landed in Abu Dhabi well after midnight. The team spent the night at one of the many hotels. Yassen retired to his temporary apartment. Alex knew, because he received a message on his phone that morning letting him know that Yassen would arrive at Malagosto at nine.

Part of him wished Yassen would just have gone straight to the school after they landed. Sure, it was a bit of a danger with too many high-ranking members of SCORPIA in one place for too long, but it seemed like forever since he had last seen Yassen and he desperately needed that small bit of normal life. Well, what counted for normal these days. The other, more sensible part of him knew it was for the better this way. He needed the rest, his body needed the rest, and he would have forced himself to get up to be there when Yassen arrived.

Alex was up by seven and felt more rested and human than he had in ages. He still looked tired and pale, even he would admit that, but he still felt a lot better. Tired, but better. He took his time to get ready, careful with the stitches and his chest and let his injuries decide the pace. His shirt took a while and some care to put on. Shoes were just awkward since he still hurt if he twisted too much.

In the end he managed. Just … slower and more careful than normal. His chest was still one massive bruise but it was fading fast. The stitches did their job and the bullet wound and various cuts seemed to be healing nicely. His ribs still hurt but he knew how to handle those without aggravating them.

All in all, it could be a lot worse. Staring in the bathroom mirror was a clear reminder of just how close that bullet had actually come to killing him.

Jack was up and ready when Alex knocked on her door a quarter to eight. She looked better than she had the day before, too. He doubted she had slept fantastic in the middle of a school for terrorists, but – still better.

She gave him a long look, taking in his appearance. Alex let her. She very deliberately ignored his weapons before she finally nodded. "You look better."

"I feel better." The bruise on Jack's face was fading fast, too. Another half a week and it would probably be completely gone. "Breakfast?"

Jack took a deep breath. Alex suspected she had worked out that they would have to be social today and not just hide in their rooms. "Right."

"It's ..." Alex trailed off, trying to think of a way to describe the politics of the school. "You can't trust anyone here but they won't be a danger to you, either. The students are here to learn, but they're still being judged every moment of the day, and they know the price of failure. You're here as a guest. They'll be curious but no one will approach you. They don't want to risk offending the wrong person, so they'll be careful."

He didn't mention Chase's murder. He had covered that already on the flight. Another on a long list of unpleasant topics Jack had to know for her own sake. A careful balance of telling her enough to keep her as safe as possible but not enough details that Dr Three would decide she was too much of a risk to ever let go again. Alex had been able to get her away from Kurst. He doubted he would have any chance of doing the same with Dr Three if the man decided she was a threat.

"Sounds charming." Jack didn't quite grimace but it was close.

Neither spoke on the way to the dining hall. Breakfast for the students was finishing up when they arrived, but a number of the staff was still there, and as was Dr Three, Crux by his side. Alex didn't need instructions to know where they would be expected to sit.

He ignored the looks they drew and saw out of the corner of his eye that Jack mostly managed the same. He wasn't surprised. He looked a lot worse than the last time they had seen him, and he was in the company of someone unknown. Then they reached Dr Three's table and Alex deliberately seated himself on the available chair next to the doctor to keep at least a bit of distance between the man and Jack.

"Sir," he greeted. Beside him, Jack settled down as well and couldn't quite hide her wariness.

"Orion." Dr Three sounded as gentle and civilized as ever. "And Ms Starbright. I trust you have settled in well."

"... Yes," Jack said. Then, "Thank you."

It seemed to be polite enough for the doctor because he let them focus on breakfast. Jack gave the full plate that was put in front of her a slightly distrustful look, probably reminded of Alex's comment about poisons, then sighed and dug in. She was probably as hungry as Alex was.

The last of the students left. The room fell a lot more quiet. Classes were about to start. The atmosphere at their table was a little tense but neither Dr Three nor Crux seemed to mind and no one seemed to be in a rush to break the silence. To be fair, Alex doubted a lot of things really bothered the doctor these days.

He had just about demolished the last of his breakfast – he had _missed_ the food – when Dr Three spoke again.

"Orion?" Alex looked up immediately to meet the man's eyes. "See me after breakfast. I've arranged for Crux to keep Ms Starbright company for the day. I'm certain she would like the opportunity to buy some basic necessities of her own for her stay."

Alex had expected it. Anxiety still spiked and sent his heart racing.

"Yes, sir." He managed to keep his voice calm. He didn't doubt Dr Three knew exactly how he felt, anyway. The fact that Alex was injured wouldn't stop the man if he felt Alex needed to learn a lesson. Worse, he could very easily decide to let Alex know exactly what would happen and make him wait with that knowledge for however many months it took him to recover to the doctor's satisfaction.

He was oddly calm about leaving Jack with Crux. She would be no safer in Malagosto, anyway, and Crux was … not the worst person the doctor could have picked as combined company and guard.

Jack frowned but Alex gripped her hand before she could say whatever came to mind, and she stayed silent. Dr Three spotted the small interaction and smiled at Jack. Kindly.

"A preliminary debriefing until we have the time for a more formal one, that is all. A number of plans were interrupted by Zeljan's unfortunate decisions. Orion will be able to give a suitable account of events and the resulting consequences. We may need you to fill in the blanks later, but for now Orion knows which events will force a shift in plans."

He made it sound so reasonable. Perfectly believable. With no other choice, Jack nodded. Alex knew she wasn't happy about it but they didn't have much of a choice.

Neither of them spoke for the rest of the meal. Dr Three left soon after, but Alex lingered for a few minutes for all that he knew it wouldn't make much difference.

"We will be gone for some hours," Crux told him when they went their separate ways outside of the building, Alex to see Dr Three and Jack and Crux to … wherever they planned to go. "Try to be mindful of your injuries?"

"I'll try," Alex agreed, though he definitely wasn't about to make any promises.

Jack grimaced slightly. She was smart enough to see the arrangement for what it was; a convenient excuse to split them up for the day. "Don't do anything stupid?"

"I'll try that, too," Alex agreed again, a little more dryly.

That would have to be good enough, and Jack knew it, too. She gave him one last, pointed look, then followed Crux towards the entrance of the school. For a little while Alex just stayed there and breathed, slow and steady. Then he decided to get it over with and headed for Dr Three's office.

The building was silent when he reached it. There were guards outside but not inside.

The door to the doctor's office was open. Alex knocked once and waited for the man to acknowledge him before he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

"Orion." A pause. Dr Three's expression was utterly unreadable. "Or more accurately, Alex Rider, I suppose. You took a significant risk when you killed Zeljan. Not merely your own life and that of Ms Starbright, but our plans as well. You went against orders. You were reckless, impulsive, and unreliable to an unacceptable degree for a trained operative. Do not believe that your position makes you safe from repercussions. Operatives have been removed for lesser reasons, even the second in command of a member of the board."

Each word fell like an executioner's axe in the otherwise silent room. Alex had expected every one of them and didn't try to argue. It wasn't like he could dispute it, anyway.

"Yes, sir."

"It worked out acceptably but we are both well aware that this was through sheer luck alone. You could as easily have destroyed months of planning and the one chance we may have had to strike against Zeljan. You also incurred a significant debt in the process, yourself and Ms Starbright both."

Alex took a deep breath. "Whatever debt Jack owes, I take full responsibility for it. It was my fault she got targeted and I told her to call you. Whatever she owes, the debt is mine."

"Unsurprising," Dr Three remarked. "Quite expected, frankly. You have put her in a difficult situation now as well. She already knows too much about this school and our organisation to allow her to leave, but she is hardly the sort of personality that would thrive in such an environment."

Alex swallowed hard. He'd had those same thoughts circling in the darkest corners of his mind since the moment he knew they would both return to the school. To SCORPIA, Jack Starbright was a liability. Both useful and a potential danger due to Alex's attachment to her, but a liability when it all came down to it. Alex doubted Yassen would target her; he knew how Alex was likely to react to _that,_ but Dr Three … Alex knew he might very well not care. He had killed a colleague of twenty years without a moment of hesitation. Jack's life would mean nothing to him.

"Yes, sir." Alex didn't know what else to say. No arguments would sway the doctor once he had made up his mind, and he already knew that Alex would do pretty much anything for Jack's safety. Alex had proven that beyond any doubt.

Dr Three nodded slowly. "You understand the seriousness, at least. As you remain under Yassen's command, I will discuss the matter with him. Dismissed."

Alex wasn't sure if that was an improvement or not. He just swallowed again. "Yes, sir."

Anxiety remained as a tight knot in his chest when he left the room.

* * *

Alex spent the last few minutes until nine waiting by the main building on a bench in the morning sun. It was warm and pleasant and helped chase away the last, lingering memories of the Russian winter.

He felt tired. Sore. Wrung out. He hoped Jack was doing okay, wherever she and Crux had gone. He dreaded Yassen and Dr Three's talk but had missed Yassen too much to let that anxiety take over completely. He was still on decently strong painkillers, strong enough to handle the pain from his ribs but not enough that they didn't hurt if he did something stupid, like move too fast or twist at a bad angle. Dr Javadi probably had plenty of experience with hitting that balance. Enough to work if the patient was sensible, not enough if they were going to be stupid about it. Probably a smart approach with SCORPIA's operatives.

It was nine exactly by the time a white Mercedes drove past the gates and came to a stop in front of the main building. Alex got to his feet the same moment as Yassen stepped out of the car. He looked fine, even to Alex's trained eye. Rested, no sign of injuries, and Alex breathed a silent sound of relief. He had known but part of him needed to see it in person.

A bag slung over one shoulder, undoubtedly heavily armed even if Alex could only spot a few of the weapons, but no further security that Alex could tell, and a flicker of unease settled in him. Malagosto wasn't safe and Yassen _knew_ that.

Yassen's eyes found him immediately and Alex saw him do that same evaluation in turn with a somewhat worse result. Alex had seen himself in the mirror. He was still a bit pale, still looked tired, and he knew he moved a lot more slow and cautious than normally. To someone like Yassen, that was plenty to fill in whatever blanks Dr Three's report might have left out.

Yassen crossed the few steps between them before Alex could. Up close, Alex recognised the look in Yassen's eyes for what it was, a strangely familiar mix of concern and resignation and a good amount of exasperation to go with it.

"Alex." Yassen could put a whole conversation into his name, and Alex had enough experience to hear it.

"Sorry," he breathed. Not for saving Jack, never for saving Jack, but for everything else. For risking their plans, for making Yassen worry, for putting himself in Dr Three's debt and forcing Yassen to deal with that, too.

Calloused fingers reached out to brush his cheek, that one gesture letting Alex know exactly how worried Yassen had been, and he felt the guilt gnaw. He hadn't meant to make anyone worry. He had just … he'd had to save Jack, and that was the only way.

"That was remarkably reckless," Yassen said, "even by your standards."

"... I know," Alex admitted. There wasn't much else he could say to that. "Sagitta?"

"Your commander will be on medical leave for two months. Considering that he took a high-calibre sniper bullet to the chest, that is a minor injury, even with heavy body armour. The rest were minor issues. They are competent at their job."

High praise. Something in Alex eased a little. He _liked_ Sagitta. They had done nothing so far to make Yassen decided they weren't up to the standards he expected of Alex's personal combat team, but he had still worried how the assignment alone with Yassen would go. They had his approval now. Attachments were bad, Alex _knew_ that, but it was still a relief. He liked them and while being associated with him was a risk, as Dr Three had made abundantly clear, he was also in a position to protect them a little.

Another brush against his cheek, then Yassen glanced in the direction of Dr Three's building before he focused on Alex again. "Go rest. I have matters to discuss with the good doctor. I'll find you afterwards."

That was not a suggestion. Alex nodded.

"Yes, sir." He was about to leave but couldn't, not without asking. "Your security -"

Sagitta, some of SCORPIA's own guards, _anything_ to make Alex feel a bit better. But then, security had done nothing to help Chase when he had let down his guard too much.

"I'm in a remarkably safe position at the moment." Yassen sounded honestly _amused._ "Should anything happen to me, the good doctor will be solely responsible for the future of SCORPIA and thus the revenue that funds his research. At best, it will severely cut into the time he has available for his hobby. At worst, the next many years will be taken up by business matters and will leave no time at all for other pursuits. The doctor is a man of science, not business administration or politics. I will need security beyond these gates, certainly. Here, I am far more valuable alive than dead."

Another flicker of amusement and Yassen was gone, off to discuss a number of things that Alex was pretty sure he didn't want to know and just as sure he wouldn't be given a choice about. Alex watched Yassen's figure until it vanished into the building and hoped that he was right about security, because Alex himself was in no position to do a thing about it. Then he took a deep breath and headed off to his room to get some actual rest.

* * *

It took an hour before Yassen returned. Alex woke up from his light nap at the first sound of a knock on the door. He had rested but hadn't slept all that well. He could imagine what Yassen had discussed with Dr Three and anxiety had settled heavy and unwelcome at the thought. Not just Alex's debt but Jack's situation as well.

If they decided she had become too much of a liability …

Alex took a shuddering breath. Pushed the thought aside and shuffled his way across the room to let Yassen inside.

Neither spoke for long seconds. Then Alex settled down on the bed again. "How bad is it?" he asked quietly.

He didn't want to know but prolonging the anxiety sounded even worse.

"You will remain Dr Three's assistant during your recovery. We will reconsider the situation after you are cleared for field work again. Your – conditioning from RTI can be removed but requires time to do so. The doctor will retire on his own schedule, most likely in a few years, with SCORPIA's complete blessings and continued funding."

That … wasn't nearly as bad as Alex had expected. He nodded. "Jack?"

"As the doctor has already made you aware, she knows too much about the workings of SCORPIA to simply let her leave." Alex opened his mouth, about to argue, but Yassen continued before he could. "There are alternatives. If your strong attachment is mutual, it would be a possibility to allow her to remain in SCORPIA's employ. The organisation has a number of subsidiaries that are not involved in the same … unpleasant business as most of SCORPIA."

Alex had known. It didn't make it any easier to hear out loud from Yassen as well. That also wasn't as bad as it could be. He still felt guilty that he had managed to get her tangled up in the whole mess, too; knew that the moment Yassen and Dr Three had decided she was a potential risk, she had lost any chance of ever being completely free of SCORPIA again, but … it could have been worse. Much worse. He still feared what Jack would have to say about it, but at least Yassen and the doctor had found a decently acceptable alternative. Hopefully. There had been a very prominent _if_ in that sentence.

Did he owe the doctor another debt for that? He wasn't sure. Right now he didn't care. They hadn't expected Jack to become a target, not while Alex was still seen as nothing more than Yassen's obedient pet, and they had been wrong. Alex would just have to do what he could to make up for that now and then figure out what to do about Tom afterwards as well.

Yassen gave him a considering look. "Something to discuss later, however. You need your rest."

He did. Alex felt tired again already, a combination of the lingering exhaustion, his physical injuries, and the stress of waiting for whatever verdict the doctor and Yassen decided on. He knew Yassen had things to do. Places to be. Whatever a member of the executive board did. Right now, Alex was of no use to anyone. He still hesitated.

Yassen obviously noticed, because he settled down on the unused half of the bed and brought out his laptop, then glanced up at Alex's questioning look. "I would like to get a look at Starbright in person. I expect she will have some questions of her own."

A valid excuse. Still an excuse. Yassen could have come back for that sort of meeting. He hadn't needed to stay with Alex for that.

Alex wasn't going to ask Yassen to stay, and Yassen wasn't going to make him do it. Alex wondered briefly if Yassen had missed him, too. Dismissed the thought as something he could wonder about later. For now he grabbed his blanket, let dignity be damned, and curled up next to Yassen.

He was asleep before Yassen could even start typing.

* * *

Jack returned in the late afternoon. By then Alex had managed to be awake for long enough to get something to eat and look sort of alive and coherent. He was just finishing up his account of events at the military base with Kurst when he heard a knock on the door and stopped mid-sentence.

Yassen's attention turned briefly to the door, then back at Alex in silent permission.

Alex was sure that Jack was physically okay. It was still a relief to see her when he opened the door. No shopping bags, he noticed, but she had probably already left those in her own room.

Alex felt like the world stood still for a moment. Nothing to do but get it over with, though, and he stepped aside to let Jack into the room.

He could tell the exact moment she spotted Yassen and recognised him, probably from MI6 or the CIA's files. The shift in her body language and the sudden, tense anger. Yassen's expression in turn was unreadable even to Alex. Neither of the two looked away from the other.

Alex took a deep breath. "Jack, this is Yassen Gregorovich. He's the one who trained me. Yassen, this is Jack Starbright. She pretty much raised me from when I was seven."

There was a lot more he could have said – _the man who drugged you, the man who killed Ian Rider, the man who got me tangled up with MI6 and SCORPIA –_ but it didn't need to be spoken out loud. They were all three aware of it.

Jack's expression hardened. "You're the one who got him trapped in this world."

"You mistake me for Alan Blunt." Yassen's blue eyes, cold and emotionless on the best of days, were little more than shards of ice. "Alex."

The name was spoken without ever looking at him. Alex knew that tone of voice from after Miami. That was the 'sit down and rest' voice that wasn't really a suggestion and nothing good came of ignoring it. He sat down in one of the soft chairs, not about to argue with that tone of voice even if he hadn't been tired.

"You murdered Ian Rider."

Alex had wondered if Jack would actually say the words. He had his answer now. The reminder hurt, the knowledge that Yassen had fired the bullets that had killed Alex's last living relative, but he had learned to accept it for what it was. Acknowledge the pain and move on. Accept that he could do nothing to change the past. It was easier those days when he resented the training Ian had put him through and the decisions that had left Alex as MI6's property. It was a lot harder the days when he remembered vacations and birthdays and just being a family.

Yassen Gregorovich had killed Ian Rider and in doing so had left Alex at MI6's mercy. If Ian hadn't died … Alex wasn't sure. Sayle would still have been stopped, he was sure of that, but the possibilities spun rapidly out of control after that. Would Blunt have found another way to investigate Grief's operation without Alex there? Or would Alex simply have drawn his attention a little later than he originally had?

"I was hired to ensure security. Ian Rider was competent at his job. I was better."

The response was so cold and matter-of-fact that Alex flinched just a little despite his best effort not to. He didn't doubt both Jack and Yassen spotted it, too, Jack's quick glance told him as much.

"And then you … what? Decided to make up for that by kidnapping Alex and turning him into a killer?" Jack asked spitefully.

 _Killer._ Alex couldn't argue that point. It still hurt to hear it spoken out loud in Jack's voice and words. Made it real in a way that SCORPIA's casual treatment of it sometimes didn't.

The air seemed to cool another degree. "I gave him a choice, which was more than MI6 bothered to give him."

"A choice? He was _fourteen!_ He should have been in school and had a normal life! You _had no right!_ "

Yassen's expression was unreadable even to Alex. "Would you have preferred to take your chances with MI6? Once could have been desperation. Twice could perhaps even have been excused. Did you truly believe they would ever allow him a normal life the third time they forced him into service? He was skilled but conveniently expendable, with his father's luck and a perfect cover in his age. At best, they would have used him until his age made them unable to make use of that cover anymore. He would have been unlikely to ever adjust to normal life again. More likely, he would have been disposed of as a potential liability if he did not conveniently die on a mission. A child repeatedly blackmailed into service would have no loyalty towards them, no reason not to turn on them at the right price. They have seen people disposed of for less. A teenager who happened to unfortunately die on a skiing trip abroad would raise no questions."

Cold logic, like Alex had learned to expect from Yassen. It was the entirely wrong approach to use now. Alex spotted Jack's intention the instant before she pulled back her arm. To Yassen, she had to be an open book. He caught her hand before her punch could get anywhere near him.

Alex was halfway out of the chair when two voices stopped him.

" _Alex."_

Perfectly synchronised, neither of them even looking at him, and sheer surprise made Alex sit back down. Mutely. They were the two closest things he had to parental influences these days. He was still surprised at the reminder.

For a moment neither of them moved. Then Yassen let go of her hand again and Jack rubbed her knuckles, a little less furious. "You could at least have let me punch you."

"I could also not."

For a long time they just watched each other. Alex knew better than to get involved after the response the last time he had tried. Yassen's punishments were bad enough. He didn't want whatever Jack could think of on top of that.

"You made him kill," Jack finally said. "He was _fourteen._ "

"Fifteen at the time of his graduation." A heartbeat. "Whatever Blunt and Jones might have claimed and Alex might have left out of his stories of those missions, he was fourteen when he killed for MI6. They did not give him a gun, and most of those deaths were in self-defence, but not all."

 _Grief and the helicopter._ Alex did not regret it, and a year and a half with Yassen and SCORPIA had dulled whatever feelings he might have had about that one, but it had still been deliberate. He'd had no choice, Grief would have escaped otherwise, but Alex had known the likely results the split-second he made that decision.

Jack's expression hardened. "That's your alternative to MI6? That's a wonderful defence right there. It's okay because he was fifteen and MI6 did it first?"

"I taught him to survive." Yassen's voice gained a harder edge as well. "How long do you think Blunt would have permitted the same?"

"And now he's conveniently stuck here, because you removed every other option he had. Would you even let him leave if he wanted to?"

"Ms Starbright," Yassen said, very calm and even, "Alex is a wanted terrorist. He is the acknowledged apprentice of one of the world's most skilled assassins and a graduate of the best school of murder on the planet. He will never have a normal life. What do you think will happen if you send someone of his skills to Britain or the US or whatever other country you deem a suitable new start for him? Do you believe that those intelligence agencies will keep to any agreements to leave him alone, like the upstanding members of society they are? Trained operatives of his skills are valuable. His age makes him all but priceless."

"He's a _person_ ," Jack snapped. "Not a _thing._ "

"Not according to the contract he signed. Certainly not according to the intelligence agencies. SCORPIA is merely upfront about it and put a time limit on the agreement."

 _Property of SCORPIA._

Sometimes Alex still felt chilled to the bone at the memory of the cold, straight-forward, formal wording of the contract that never mentioned it in as many words – it used terms like _exclusive employment_ and _assignments and associated terms decided by the employer or a designated representative of such_ – but which between the lines left little doubt that a signature also signed over any human rights for the duration of it. Sometimes he remembered Blunt and Jones' approach, the lure and honeyed words followed by blackmail, and appreciated that SCORPIA was at least honest about it. Both approaches left little doubt about the outcome. SCORPIA just cut straight to the chase and at least considered him enough of an investment to train and equip him properly.

"Because _that's_ legally binding." The amount of sarcasm Jack managed to put into those four words was impressive even to Alex.

"Binding enough," Yassen conceded.

And it was, Alex supposed, when things like _termination of the agreement_ meant flat-out termination of the operative, and the contract was with the biggest freelance terrorist organisation on the planet. It wouldn't be legally binding in any court of law, but it was certainly binding enough in SCORPIA's world when the person doing the signing knew the consequences of breaking it.

"So instead of the occasional mission and a bit of a normal life in-between, he does this full time. _Much better._ "

"A full-time job, with pay and benefits," Yassen agreed, ignoring the sarcasm. "Alex will be on paid medical leave for a minimum of four months to recover from his injury. I believe even the idea of paying him at all, for assignments or otherwise, was beyond MI6's comprehension. Alex's training here cost him more than half a million American dollars. He paid off that debt in full within nine months of his graduation. His exclusive contract runs for another four years, after which he will be free to retire if that is his wish, with the skills, money, and connections to do whatever he desires."

Of course, that would never happen and Alex knew it. They had other plans, though it was definitely not something they could tell her. Not yet, at least. Retirement after the end of the contract had been an option once. Not anymore.

Jack did not look happy at all. Hard eyes and lips pressed into a thin line, but at least she hadn't tried to hit him again. "Right. Just like that. And how much blood will he have on his hands? How many people will want him dead?"

Yassen didn't rise to the bait. "Presumably the same amount as he would have had, had he stayed under MI6's control. Assuming, of course, they chose to let him go when his age would no longer work to their advantage and that he actually survived."

Callous and painfully realistic. Jack didn't respond. Alex stayed silent, too. He would never know what life would have been like if he had chosen to stay in London when given the choice, but he had developed enough of a pessimistic view of the world to know it had been unlikely to be much better than what he had now.

Then Jack's shoulders slumped slightly, silently conceding the point. Alex wondered just how much time she had spent having to tell Blunt and Byrne and the rest of them to go to hell and leave her alone, and guilt settled again.

"He was _fourteen,_ " she repeated, much softer this time.

"It was not the life his father would have wanted for him," Yassen agreed quietly. "But it was the best alternative I could offer him. I owed Hunter as much."

Something in Alex's chest twisted, the reminder of his father and of the teenager that Yassen had been once, fifteen years ago and with about as many choices in life as Alex himself had these days.

John Rider could have chosen to let his teenage apprentice stumble into that sort of life blind, to treat him like the potential enemy he was, but he hadn't. He had tried to turn Yassen away from that path, had tried to give him alternatives – like Yassen himself had with Alex, fifteen years later – but he had trained Yassen to the best of his ability, and Alex wished again, bright and fiercely, that he'd had the chance to know his parents. To know the woman who had travelled across Europe at six months pregnant for a single, stolen moment with the husband she had stood by despite everything, and the man who had been cold-blooded enough to thrive with SCORPIA but still taken a teenage assassin under his wing and gambled an entire undercover operation for a few, fleeting hours with his wife and unborn child.

It was more than just the bullet that had saved Yassen's life. Hunter's influence would remain with Yassen for the rest of his life, just like Yassen's influence would stay with Alex until his luck or skills eventually ran out. Permanently, irreversibly entwined, and Jack had seen that, too.

In theory maybe Alex could leave but in every way that actually mattered, he was as bound to Yassen as Yassen likely was to him in turn.

Jack nodded once. Took a deep breath. There had been an entire conversation in that brief exchange and Alex had the horrible suspicion he had missed most of it. "Now what?"

"You are an intelligent woman, Ms Starbright." It was less compliment and more cool statement of fact. "You have spent enough time with the CIA and MI6 to have an understanding of the world. You did your best not to ask any unfortunate questions of Alex. Even then, I think you are well aware that you know too much for SCORPIA to simply let you leave."

Jack's expression hardened slightly again. Alex was about to object when a glance from Yassen stopped him before he could open his mouth.

"I expected as much, yes," Jack agreed.

Yassen nodded slightly. He looked faintly satisfied to Alex. Not about the situation, Alex suspected, but more the fact that things went as he had expected.

"There are some options even then. I will leave it to the good doctor to cover those tomorrow. You are in the unusually fortunate situation that Alex not only considers you family but that he is also well on his way to becoming one of the most influential people within SCORPIA. He will remain my second in command for the foreseeable future but should he show the potential for it, he will be moved into place to take over on the executive board upon my retirement. This means that SCORPIA has a remarkable incentive to see to your continued well-being."

An incentive that would vanish if Alex lost that influence. If Jack tried too hard to get the Alex she knew back. Jack's expression told Alex she had realised that, too.

Whatever happened, SCORPIA would not let Jack go. Not with how much she knew. It was a gilded cage, but it was still a cage, and it was Alex's fault.

He looked down, picking at the fabric of the armrest. It looked as pristine and expensive as everything else in the room.

If it hadn't been for him, Kurst would never have taken enough of an interest in Jack to have her kidnapped to use against Alex. If he hadn't called her, no one would have marked her as interesting enough to keep an eye on – SCORPIA or the CIA or anyone else. If he hadn't accepted Yassen's offer and left London in the first place …

Something must have shown – Alex had become a lot better at hiding his emotions but Jack knew him too well and he was still exhausted – because Jack ran a hand through his hair and made him look up.

"It isn't your fault."

Alex took an unsteady breath. In the same room as Jack and Yassen both, he felt weirdly vulnerable. "If I hadn't -"

"You never asked for any of this." Jack's voice was low but firm. "Yes, you were a little too curious for your own good. You had barely turned fourteen, for God's sake. Blunt is the one who didn't give you a choice and dragged you into this mess. Blame Ian, or Blunt, or your glaring boss over there, but it wasn't your fault."

A glance at Yassen revealed that he watched them closely but didn't seem to be in any hurry to interrupt. Alex's attention returned to Jack.

"Do you think the safe-house they put me in was any better?" she asked. "I knew they put me there as bait, they knew that I knew, and I couldn't go anywhere without surveillance. That's not the sort of thing that's easy to explain to new people you meet, and a job outside of the house … it would have been a disaster."

Another gilded cage. It made Alex realised how little freedom Jack had been allowed since he left. First by MI6, then by the CIA. Maybe there had been breaks in-between but they had never stopped watching. SCORPIA had at least be upfront about the fact that the only freedom Alex would have for the duration of the contract was whatever they gave him.

"I'm still sorry."

"I know." Jack gave him a wry smile. "Rest. You've got an hour to nap before dinner. We'll talk tomorrow, see what the options are and what we've got to work with."

Alex would have objected. His yawn ruined that. He had rested as much as he could in Russia but it had still been somewhere unfamiliar and unsafe to his mind. Malagosto wasn't much safer, but at least it was familiar and somewhere his mind associated with surprisingly all right memories. Now, with at least some of the stress and dread of Jack and Yassen's first meeting out of the way, the exhaustion set in again. He wondered how long it would be before he stopped being tired all the time. He had been told two full weeks of rest before he could start on anything else. At the rate things were going, that sounded about right.

A prolonged state of stress, the doctors had told him – both Javadi and the Russian one. That probably didn't help on things, either. Alex hadn't enjoyed his weeks alone with Dr Three but he hadn't realised how much of a strain he had been under until now. Before that, it had been the Congo, and Australia, and Santa Catarina. He couldn't actually remember the last time he hadn't had something to worry about.

Maybe the two weeks with Crux, as ridiculous as that sounded. Baghdad had been stressful, and the days with Nile even more so. Whenever it had been, he had some sleep to catch up on.

Yassen and Jack's eyes met for a long second in what was to Alex very obviously a very loud, silent argument complete with pointed looks and arched eyebrows. Maybe it was the painkillers talking, but he was absurdly reminded more than anything of divorced parents trying not to argue in front of the kids. Tom would have recognised that expression, too, Alex was sure of it.

Finally Jack huffed and crossed her arms. Yassen packed away his laptop.

Jack still managed a smile of sorts when she turned her attention back to Alex. "Get some rest. We'll wake you up in an hour."

 _We'll._ That sounded like it was going to go just great.

"Try not to kill each other," Alex might have argued more, but his bed was too attractive. He would just have to trust they could get along. Just for a little while.

Jack smiled again. Ran a hand through his hair and headed for the door. Yassen let her out before he followed and pointedly closed the door behind him.

Arguing parents. Alex supposed it was kind of appropriate, given how important of a role both of them played in his life.

Hopefully they would manage a little more gracefully than Tom's had.

* * *

A/N 1: Thank you very much for the congratulations! :)

A/N 2: Alex's 'student debt' was very roughly calculated based on the few comments we get in the books – like Ross being hired at five times his original salary, and the school having more teachers than students (at least when Yassen attended it) – the extra courses Alex attended, as well as a percentage on top of that to compensate for those students who don't live to graduate or pay off their full debt. SCORPIA wouldn't want the school to run at a loss, after all. Alex paid off more than half of that from the Miami mission – he was very well paid for that one, even by SCORPIA-terms.

Night Riders: As far as we know, it's a girl :) As for Crux, right now she is in on most of it. Dr Three had her figure it out as a test, which will show up in the next interlude. They haven't bothered with a cover story for Jack after they left Russia – with Mikato dead, it doesn't matter if people find out the truth (Yassen and Dr Three do, in fact, feel it would do wonders for Alex's reputation if it became known he had killed Kurst). Jack is there as a guest of the doctor for now, and no one is going to ask any questions about that.

Next: Six weeks in six points of view (probably; because the interlude took on a life of its own, and I'm posting it before it manages to get past 15k).


	68. Interlude: Six Weeks, part I

A/N: This is another of those interludes that took on a life of its own. I wavered between posting the next chapter and this interlude in two parts – the original plan was one part, but that was before this sucker managed to work its way well past 15k. Since it's one year exactly since the fic got posted, I'm just going to post the first half now and the second in three days, so I have time to edit the rest of it. This half was written solely to work out what went on behind the scenes while Alex was doing other stuff (to make everything match up), so it's only three different POVs but fairly long sections for each.

* * *

More than a decade in SCORPIA's employ had made Crux quite familiar with the lethal politics of the organisation. More towards the heart of it, of course, but it remained even among normal operatives and the callous way guards and combat teams and even trained operatives were written off if the situation demanded it.

She knew politics had been involved in her transfer to Malagosto. She did not know why, and that was a lingering concern in the back of her mind as she got used enough to classes to focus on more than merely the next lesson and the progress of her students.

Without the motives behind, she was all but blind and that was a deadly place to be in SCORPIA. Almost as deadly of a place as disappointing Dr Three would put her in, which gave her plenty of incentive to focus on doing well as an instructor and dismiss those concerns to somewhat further down her list of priorities.

Crux was not about to ask the doctor himself for an explanation which left … few options, really. So she waited and watched for the slightest of hints and carried on with her classes to the best of her ability.

The first hint arrived the morning of the new year. Crux knew that Gregorovich and Orion had been by to visit Dr Three after the recent … upheavals. It had been somewhat of a surprise to hear that the child would remain at Malagosto for the foreseeable future while Gregorovich himself hunted for any leads regarding the people behind the recent attacks.

She had heard the official explanation, of course. He was high-profile and conspicuous. He would do well as additional security for the doctor and the school as he spent a while on his education.

It did not sound right to her.

It sounded even less right to her when she got the chance to actually observe Orion. The child was – uneasy. Some of could be explained by being away from his mentor and master for so long. Gregorovich _had_ done a thorough job training the child, after all. Part of it could be his unease about being in such close proximity to Dr Three for the duration of it. Crux deeply respected the doctor but she wasn't blind to his reputation and with Orion's dislike of torture … she could not entirely fault his reaction.

Still, something was off. The unease faded slightly but never went away, and Orion was – unusually respectful. More than merely a student with a respected teacher.

Orion was afraid.

He hid it well and played his role as he should, but he genuinely feared the doctor. Crux did, too, of course, as any reasonably person would, but Orion's manner was … different. As Gregorovich's second in command, he enjoyed a level of protection afforded to few others. Still, he did not act the part. The child genuinely feared what Dr Three might do, and that spoke volumes to Crux. Orion was intelligent and without a lot of the unfounded arrogance of new operatives. If he was genuinely afraid – for his own well-being, or quite possibly for Gregorovich's, which was not an option she could rule out – it was because he had reason to.

She did not know the reasons for sure but she understood perfectly well that Orion was caught up in politics above his paygrade, and that he knew it, too.

Further observation revealed that Dr Three kept him close, frequently within sight. If not, Orion was more often than not to be found in the doctor's building, anyway, with the exceptions being his own classes or the time he assisted with others.

Orion was a student and was smart enough to take advantage of the opportunity he was given to improve his own abilities, but Orion was also a prisoner. That much had become clear to Crux. She did not speak of it, like Orion did not, but she sought him out when she could and kept him company when possible. He was polite, pleasant company and she knew him well enough to tell that he was lonely. She could not get involved but she could do that much, at least.

He worked hard, was clearly on his best behaviour, and Dr Three made sure to dismiss him before he descended into some of his more technical discussions with Crux. A reward, she assumed. Personally she always found those discussions both interesting and educational but Orion was still young.

Things settled into a new routine. Orion left for a day as security for the doctor and by all accounts he did an excellent job, not that Crux had expected otherwise.

And then Brendan Chase arrived. Crux was not present for the discussions but she was there at Professor Yermalov's class when Nile arrived to watch as well. Crux had another student up for resistance to interrogation soon. She found it useful to gauge their physical state beforehand. They would go through a medical examination as well, but watching them with Yermalov gave her a good first-hand impression.

"Nile," she greeted him.

"Crux." Pleasant and friendly as always. They were on more equal footing these days, with Crux as an instructor and Dr Three's apprentice, but even then Nile had never been anything but unfailingly polite. She was aware of how much it unnerved some people around him.

On the training ground, Yermalov barked a sharp order. The man had little patience with even the best of their students. Crux felt a small bit of pity for Orion's daily hour of one-on-one lessons with the man. It was highly educational and the child improved day by day, but Yermalov was a harsh instructor.

"Ignazio and Zdeslav," Nile said.

Crux's attention rested briefly on him before she focused on the two students on the grounds.

"Quite competent, both of them. There are no guarantees, of course, but I believe they both stand a quite reasonable chance of being some of our future elite operatives. I expect them to pass RTI without issue. They both have stable tempers and prior experience in field work. Hardly up to the best of our standards, but very few are."

Nile nodded. "For security assignments?"

"Both would be suitable." Crux barely needed to consider it. She knew both of the men in question quite well by now. "Ignazio more than Zdeslav, but both have the patience and personality to manage well on such assignments."

They fell silent. Merely watched the students for a while as Yermalov started them on another exercise. Crux filed away a few more mental notes on her own student.

"And for a more permanent position on a security detail?" Nile eventually asked.

He was hunting subjects for Brendan Chase, then. Crux had wondered about the purpose of the visit. Now she knew. Some of Zeljan Kurst's security detail came from Malagosto as well. Now the pieces clicked into place.

"Ignazio would be the better option. He would likely be a perfect fit for a permanent assignment as security. Zdeslav is a bit more independent. A bit more restless. I would recommend more careful consideration and perhaps an appointment with Dr Steiner for a second opinion on his suitability for that."

Nile nodded again. He likely knew most of that already, but it never hurt with additional points of view.

On the other side of the training grounds, Crux saw Dr Three and Brendan Chase appear, Orion a silent shadow behind them.

One moment everything looked normal. The next -

\- She watched Dr Three reach for his gun and fire at Chase in one, smooth motion, so fast that no one around him had a chance to react. Like Nile, like Orion, Crux responded immediately, a gun in her own hand seconds later -

\- And then Dr Three's voice cut through the sudden flood of adrenaline.

" _Nile._ "

Crux knew that voice, remembered it in her nightmares amidst smoke and fire and burning lungs, and she froze immediately.

Nobody moved. Orion had gone as still as she had. Nile by her side, the focus of Dr Three's voice, barely even breathed.

Then he lowered his gun. Only Crux was close enough to see the small tremor in his hands. Was that the sort of control one could instil through resistance to interrogation? Crux understood with a sudden, sinking feeling just how much influence Dr Three would potentially put into her hands and how closely she would be watched for any sign that she could not live up to such responsibility.

Dr Three nodded, apparently satisfied with Nile's obedience.

"Crux." The doctor's voice was calm and clear. Crux lowered her gun. "Put the school in lockdown, dispose of Brendan's security detail, then find Oliver and bring him to my office. I have matters I wish to discuss with him."

 _Discuss._ Crux nodded once and left, already sorting through what needed to be done. She left Dr Three's security in Orion's hands, and Nile's fate with Dr Three.

* * *

To d'Arc's credit, he immediately grasped the seriousness of the situation. He did not ask questions, not about what had happened or about the guards that Crux commandeered with orders to dispose of Chase's entourage. He would get answers from Dr Three. Crux was merely the messenger.

She was mildly surprised when Dr Three arrived not only with Orion but with Nile as well. She did not let it show, but she suspected that Nile was as surprised as she was. It was – customary to dispose of operatives who might become a danger. Common sense, really. And Nile could very well hold a grudge.

Dr Three entered his office, Crux and d'Arc close behind. The door closed and the doctor settled down.

"Crux." She focused on him immediately and he continued, looking to all the world like a kind teacher. "Tell me what just took place."

A test. She was used to those and she took the time to gather her thoughts before she answered. The doctor preferred a well-reasoned response rather than a fast one. At first glance, Chase's death appeared entirely irrational, but Dr Three was a calm, meticulous man not prone to impulsive fits. There were other reasons, then. Reasons that were good enough to be worth the potential fallout.

"Chase had become a danger," she began and started with the easiest conclusion. Dr Three liked to hear her train of thought as well. "He was not aware of it, however, or he would not have come here and certainly not with such a small security detail. He has, to my knowledge, not proven a problem to you or the school, sir, which rules out the obvious reasons."

Dr Three nodded. Gestured slightly for her to continue.

"Orion is here as a prisoner. The only person he would provide any sort of leverage against might be Mr Gregorovich, and that only if Mr Gregorovich has grown significantly more attached to the child than anyone believes. Were Orion himself the problem, he would simply have been disposed of. Insurance, then. The promise of good behaviour from Mr Gregorovich. An alliance, though a fragile one. Fragile enough to require such insurance."

The purpose of the alliance, though … there weren't that many members of the board left alive, Crux realised as well as something else clicked into place. Kroll, Yu, Duval. Now Chase. And there had been the failed attack on Gregorovich, too.

Kroll had died by Yu's hand and could be removed from the list. Yu, however … he had been the first of those mysterious attacks. His security had been exceptionally good and yet someone had still found a way around it.

Orion had acted oddly, when she had told him. She thought it was because he had realised how close he had come to being there himself. He had served as security for Yu no more than a month and a half prior. He could easily have been on that helicopter. Now, though …

Someone had needed inside information to target Yu, she knew that now. Orion had supplied it, which meant Gregorovich had been behind the assassination.

Was that what Dr Three had seen to make such an alliance necessary? She doubted that. One assassination was hardly enough, even that of a fellow board member. Dr Three had learned something else. The failed attack on Gregorovich and his client, then? SCORPIA had lost no one in that attack. The initial, failed attack on Chase had cost the man his primary home and most of the people there. The attack on Gregorovich … even Orion and his favoured combat team, who had actually been at the client's estate, had been away at the time. Conveniently so.

A set-up, then? And for what reason?

Chase had worked something out, or Dr Three would not have targeted him. Something important enough to run such a risk. With Gregorovich's promotion, Nile was SCORPIA's best active field operative. The doctor's decision to kill Chase could easily have ended far worse than it did.

Life or death, then. Chase had worked something out that would have made Dr Three a target.

Yu, Duval. Chase.

Yu had died by Gregorovich's hand and Chase by Dr Three's, the two men now somewhat distrustful allies – distrustful enough to need to keep Orion at Malagosto as insurance. Duval … the French intelligence community remained the primary suspect, they had proven ruthless enough for such operations before, but SCORPIA was rapidly expanding the search. With every week without evidence of French involvement, that theory became less likely.

Gregorovich himself could not leave without drawing unnecessary attention, but he had Orion and a trusted combat team to act in his place and very likely the intel to see it done. If Gregorovich wanted Duval gone for whatever reason … it could have been possible.

Orion's lack of presence on the estate during the attack was awfully convenient. And the lack of any sign as to the identity of the attackers made it all the more so.

Who was left now beyond Gregorovich and Dr Three? Kurst and Mikato? And Dr Three had just used Orion as security during a meeting with Kurst.

"A takeover," she concluded. It was a bit of a leap, admittedly, but something about the conclusion felt right. "You have removed most of your opponents. Chase was not a planned target for now but he discovered something he should not have. Something that would make you a target, sir, should it get past the gates of the school. Only politics at executive board level would warrant that."

D'Arc never spoke but he tensed slightly at her words. Understandable, she supposed. Like it was common sense to remove potentially bothersome operatives, it might very well be common sense to replace the principal of the school, should he prove less than enthusiastic about the change of power as well.

Dr Three looked pleased. "Very well done. Quite accurate, too."

Kind eyes turned to d'Arc and sharpened slightly as they lost their pleasant edge.

"Now, Oliver. Let us discuss the future of SCORPIA and this school."

Fifteen minutes and some subtle threats later, d'Arc left the room again. The discussion had turned out fairly detailed – Crux assumed that was a sign that the man would not be summarily disposed of – and Gregorovich had joined in on video feed as well. Crux had caught a glimpse of the screen and seen the man in outdoor clothes and in a forest area somewhere with daylight. She expected it had taken him a while to find a suitable place to accept the call but that he had obviously deemed it important enough to do so.

Crux had spent the conversation watching d'Arc for any sign of unfortunate ideas. She was Dr Three's sole protection at the moment and she took that role seriously. Those concerns had eased a little as the conversation carried on but she never quite allowed them to vanish. Not with the sort of things at stake.

Dr Three's attention turned briefly to her. "Bring me Nile and Orion."

Crux nodded and left to fetch them. To decide Nile's future and, presumably, to prove to Gregorovich that his second in command was still alive. Now that she knew the stakes … well, Orion's fear made quite a bit of sense.

* * *

In the end, Nile survived. It should perhaps have been a surprise, but the man was exceptionally skilled and Dr Three obviously trusted he would remain loyal. Crux would trust that verdict, too.

Orion remained at Malagosto. Nile was sent off to keep up the appearance of Chase's survival for however long he could.

Now that she knew the actual background of events, Crux expected that Gregorovich was indeed off hunting, though not quite for the prey that most of the executive board had been told. Dr Three had deliberately used Orion for security during a meeting with Kurst. If he intended to use the child like Gregorovich had done to find a weakness in Yu's defences – because even those that knew the truth were likely to underestimate a teenager – that left Mikato to Gregorovich.

It made sense, then, that the doctor would keep Orion around. With Gregorovich well out of reach, the risk that the man would decide the alliance had become inconvenient would have been a significant issue, but not with Orion at Malagosto.

It also implied a level of attachment on Gregorovich's behalf that was quite surprising. It was expected that Orion was attached; he was still very young and he had deliberately been trained in perfect isolation to rely on Gregorovich. That the attachment was at least partially reciprocal was the only explanation as to why Orion would be effective insurance to Dr Three.

Orion was more than merely the second in command and obedient pet that Gregorovich gave the impression of. More than that, Orion was skilled enough to keep up that act. He really was a remarkable child.

She wondered if she should share those thoughts. They were dangerous ones but Dr Three preferred honesty and he was quite able to pick out when Crux had something on her mind. That was enough to make a decision.

"Mr Gregorovich intends to train Orion as his successor," she said the next time they were alone, less a question and more of a statement.

Dr Three nodded. "It will take years but he has the potential if not the ruthlessness yet. There will be much to learn but he is a quick student; intelligent and hard-working."

Crux considered Orion; not even sixteen yet and on the awkward cusp between child and adult. A lethal operative that behaved older than his age but was in many ways still growing. Still learning his place in the world. It was an odd thought that the child she had taught disguises and helped with haircuts might one day have a seat on the executive board. Was that why she had been transferred to Malagosto? She still wondered. But Orion got attached despite common sense and training, and Crux had grown fond of him in return, and perhaps that explained it. Keep Orion's connections close, if he really were important enough to Gregorovich to be effective insurance. Any attachment Orion had could be a potential asset if that was the case. It didn't make the politics she had become tangled up in any less lethal, but at least she felt better for an explanation. It gave her something to work with.

How long had Gregorovich planned it? How long had he suspected the executive board's plans for him? That was one of those questions she would never ask.

"Yes, sir," she agreed. "Our course of action now?"

"We wait." Ever calm, ever patient. "For now, we can do nothing else. If everything falls into place, we will see about our next move. If not, I expect any plans we made now would become useless in the fallout. Treat Orion like you always have, and we will wait and see about the future."

Those orders were simple enough, at least. In the middle of that sort of lethal politics, that was almost a relief.

* * *

Jack Starbright could pinpoint a number of distinct turning points in her life, and the Rider family had been involved in a lot of them in one way or the other.

Being hired as Ian Rider's housekeeper. Seven years later, being notified of Ian's death, and the heavy knowledge that there was a barely fourteen-year-old kid upstairs who had just lost the last living relative he had. Blunt and MI6 and the truth about Ian shortly after that.

Alex's disappearance.

And now this.

She had kept herself together because going into a panic would do nothing. She didn't know the people who had kidnapped her. They spoke together in what she assumed was Russian – which she didn't understand a word of – and they had been serious enough about the job that they had killed every last agent the CIA used to watch her. She had seen several of the bodies before someone had jabbed a needle in her neck and the world had fallen away beneath her.

The next thing she knew, she was – elsewhere. A military base was her guess based on the uniforms she saw the few times someone visited her, but she had no idea of where. The man in charge was large and spoke with a harsh accent – Eastern European of some sort, she guessed – and something in his eyes sent a chill down her spine.

Jack had only seen him briefly when she had been locked away in this room, wherever it was. Still groggy from the sedative and running on adrenaline and the last bit of energy she had, she had demanded to know what was going on.

He had backhanded her hard enough to make her ears ring. When her mind had cleared again, she had been alone.

There were no windows. No clocks. No way to tell night from day, and with the sedatives still lingering in her body and no idea of how long she had been kept unconscious for, she couldn't even use her sleeping pattern to figure out the amount of time that had passed.

Based on the food that arrived, her guess was two days by the time the door finally opened and the large bastard in charge appeared.

Then she had seen Alex – a little older, a little taller, and far harder-looking than any fifteen-year-old kid should be – and the world had rapidly spun out of control.

She'd had no time to react. One moment Alex had looked to all the world like he would shoot her at the whim of – whoever the large bastard had been. The next there were two dead bodies and Alex was bleeding out on the floor.

Jack had let instincts take over, the yearly first aid courses Ian had insisted on, and she had Alex on his side and a hand pressed against the wound before she could even think about it.

She was painfully aware that she had no idea of what to do next. She didn't know where they were. She didn't know the language. She would stand out, draw attention, and Alex had just been shot and needed medical attention she couldn't give.

Alex took a deep breath, wet and raspy, and she could see the pain it caused him. His entire body tensed beneath her hand and he closed his eyes tightly for long seconds. When he opened them again, the pain had been pushed aside by a very familiar stubbornness. Jack recognised that expression and the look in his eyes.

In that moment, he was more Alex than he had been since he had first stepped into that room, and that _hurt._ In pain, bleeding, pulse racing beneath her hand, and a undercurrent of fear in his eyes that he couldn't quite hide and which made her chest tighten, but he was _Alex_. Then he seemed to gather that stubbornness around him again.

"- Kurst's keycard. Lock the door. Phone in my pocket. Need it."

The first words he had spoken directly to her and it didn't sound like him, not anymore. He was breathing but not well and he was pale. Too pale.

"Your hand," she said. She didn't wait for him to respond, just took it and pressed down where she had been trying to stop the blood and air herself.

He squeezed his eyes shut – it hurt, Jack knew it, but she could break down later when Alex wasn't _dying –_ and she turned her attention to the bodies. Which one was Kurst? If he had the keycard she needed, he was probably the one who had been in charge. She forced down her instinctive response, the nausea and bile in her throat, and looked away from the man's face as she found the keycard and had the door locked less than ten seconds later.

Getting Alex's phone was almost as hard, forcing herself to ignore just how badly he was doing in favour of doing _something,_ and she knew it wasn't a good sign that he only managed to focus on her again when she pushed the phone into his hand and took over where he had been pressing against the wound.

She could see the moment he dug deep for enough energy to concentrate on the phone but she also knew there was nothing she could do to help. It took two tries to get right. Jack didn't think she had ever felt seconds drag on for that long.

"Dr Three. Call. Say what happened."

Jack didn't know who that was and it didn't matter, as long as he could help. It seemed like forever before someone answered the phone; a calm voice that spoke English without a trace of any accent.

" _Orion?"_

Jack didn't have the first idea of where to start so she went with the most pressing matter.

"Dr Three? I'm Jack Starbright." She didn't wait for a response; she had to trust Alex was right. She didn't know the man, didn't even know if he was the right kind of doctor for this sort of thing, but he was the only option she had. "Alex has been shot. He told me to call you."

To the man's credit, he didn't waste any time. _"Details?"_

Jack took a shuddering breath. Forced herself to stay focused. "Left side of the chest. It definitely hit his lung. He's not breathing well and he's bleeding. His pulse feels too fast. He's conscious but pretty out of it on and off." She hesitated, not sure how much to say, but also knew that she didn't have much of a choice. Alex obviously trusted him to do something. "We can't get medical help. The man in charge, Kurst – his people kidnapped me. He wanted Alex to shoot me. Alex shot him and his guard instead, that's when he got hit by Kurst. I've locked the door to the room and I'm keeping a hand pressed against the wound but there aren't any medical supplies anywhere in here."

" _The second man, do you know his name?"_

"No," Jack admitted. She hadn't even seen him before as anything more than a brief glimpse when she first arrived.

" _Describe him."_

Jack didn't question it. She had to trust that Alex was right, that the man knew what he was doing, and she forced herself to look at the second dead body in the room and remember the brief seconds before everything had blown up.

"Black hair, brown eyes, Caucasian, around thirty, about an inch shorter than Alex. I think his nose has been broken once, not much, just a little ridge and nudged slightly to the right."

" _Koval, his bodyguard. No one else is aware of what happened?"_

"I don't think so. The guards haven't come running yet."

Next to her, Alex inhaled sharply and triggered a coughing fit. Jack's hand clenched the phone tightly as she kept the pressure on Alex's wound and tried to ignore the panicked wheezing in his breath as he struggled for air, as well as the blood that followed every cough.

There was no way Dr Three hadn't heard it. He continued without missing a beat.

" _You have to keep him calm, Ms Starbright. He has traumatic memories of drowning. His injury is very likely to trigger flashbacks of that given his limited ability to breathe. If he panics, he will aggravate his injuries, and he will die. I will arrange for medical assistance. Until then, you must keep him calm. If you panic, he will do the same."_

Jack took a deep breath. Forced herself to focus. "All right."

" _I expect Alex's former handlers have made you familiar with his new mentor. Your cover will be that of a SCORPIA informant. Yassen recruited both of you in London. You have served as our informant with the CIA since then. Zeljan Kurst's bodyguard was an undercover CIA operative. You recognised him. When he realised that, he shot Zeljan and wounded Alex before Alex could shoot him. Make sure Alex knows that cover story, then unlock the door. I will handle the rest."_

Another deep breath. "Right. Thank you," Jack managed.

The phone fell silent. Jack focused on Alex again. He didn't seem to be aware of her at all, and if that wasn't a bad sign, she didn't know what was. Still breathing, though. Now she had to keep him that way for long enough for help to get there.

"Alex? _Alex?_ "

That seemed to get through to him. Alex nodded briefly, but his eyes were alert again.

"Help is on its way," Jack said, a lot calmer and more confident than she felt. "I'm going to open the door. Our cover is that SCORPIA recruited me at the same time as you. I've been one of their informants. Kurst's bodyguard was an undercover agent. He recognised me, knew his cover was blown, and shot Kurst. You shot him but got hit yourself in the process. All right?"

"... Right." Quiet. Raspy. Getting worse. Before Jack could move, he continued. "Dr Three – Chinese. Looks like a retired school teacher. He's a board member. SCORPIA's interrogation expert. I went against plans. Be careful."

That was clearly more air than he had available because it sent him into another coughing fit and added to the pattern of bloodstains on the floor that Jack knew with absolute certainty was a _bad sign._

 _Interrogation expert._ Oh, that sounded just wonderful. Jack didn't say that, though. She just squeezed his hand, brief and reassuring, before she made him press down on the wound again.

 _You have to keep him calm._

"Got it. And we'll have a talk about _this_ later. I'm too young for grey hair."

It felt like asking for trouble to unlock the door but she didn't have a choice. She had trusted the doctor, whoever he was, this far and they couldn't do it alone. All she could do was hope he could keep that promise and handle things.

She had been gone for fifteen, maybe twenty seconds, but Alex's eyes had lost focus again even in that short time. Fear curled in the pit of her stomach but she forced the panic down. Later. She could break down later.

"Alex?" Jack's hand joined his and she couldn't quite keep the concern from her voice. He managed to focus on her but it was a hazy sort of focus, not quite there and on the verge of panic.

 _You have to keep him calm._

"Just keep breathing," she said with as much calm as she could manage. "Nice and even. Help is on its way. Your right lung is fine. I know it doesn't feel like it, but keep breathing, nice and even, and you'll be fine."

 _If he panics, he will aggravate his injuries, and he will die._

Alex didn't acknowledge her words but his breathing levelled out a little again and the dawning panic eased. One breath. Another. Jack found herself counting the seconds between each breath, every minute bit of tension in his body.

How long would it take for anyone to get there? How long did they have?

Her hand was red and sticky with blood, and Alex's skin was so pale even with his tan, and every breath was both a relief to hear and made her worry increase that much more. It was getting worse, even she could tell as much.

Finally she heard footsteps. The door opened a second later. Jack didn't have time to consider if it was help or the guards that had finally caught on to things before she spotted someone with a large, red bag, followed by someone else pushing a gurney. The person she assumed was a medic ignored her in favour of Alex.

"Ms Starbright?" The man who spoke was young, mid-twenties at the most, and he did so in perfect English. "You need to let go of him."

Jack nodded mutely and removed her hand. The medic took over immediately. Oxygen mask, some sort of injection … the man spoke to Alex in what she assumed was Russian but it was pretty clear to Jack that he was too out of it to understand anything. Then Alex relaxed and almost sent Jack into a panic until she noticed he was still breathing. Painkillers, then.

The man who had spoken to her pulled her out of the way to let the medics do their job. Jack didn't want to leave Alex, didn't want to let go of his hand, but she followed the man, anyway.

Jack took a shuddering breath. She had done what she could. All she could do now was hope. "... Thank you," she said when she was pretty sure she could do so without her voice breaking. Her hands were sticky. The room smelled like blood. There were two dead bodies right next to her. She wanted to throw up.

"You're welcome. I am Sagaris," the man introduced himself. There was a slight accent to his English but barely noticeable. "Dr Three sent me to assist you until Orion is well again."

 _Well again._

As Alex was transferred to the gurney and Jack got a good look at the tense expression on the medic's face, she desperately hoped he was right.

* * *

Yassen had known the seriousness of Alex's injury before they had ever left Japan. He had known how long it would likely take to recover, and how bad those injuries would still be less than a week after the gunshot. It had still been an unpleasant shock to see Alex, pale beneath his tan and moving far too slow and careful for the trained operative that he was. Alex Rider was exhausted, his body still working to recover even a fraction of its usual energy in between trying to heal the wound and the bruised and broken ribs and the necessary damage from his surgeries, and it showed.

It had been an uncomfortable reminder of how close Yassen had come to not seeing him again at all.

Dr Three's building was silent. Yassen did not bother to knock before he stepped inside the man's familiar office and closed the door behind him. He was expected.

Dr Three smiled. Yassen was still sometimes reluctantly impressed that someone with the doctor's skills still managed to look so harmless. "Yassen."

"Doctor." The extent of Yassen's tolerance for small talk reached, he got straight to the point. "Mikato is confirmed dead with no leads to the guilty parties behind. I'm sure there will be suspicions. There will be no evidence. The location of his second in command is currently unknown. Based on his psychological profile, he is likely to attempt to take over the more profitable parts of Mikato's businesses."

The doctor nodded. "I believe sending Nile to see to his permanent retirement would be a suitable solution and allow him to prove to us that we made the right choice in permitting him to live."

That was perfectly acceptable to Yassen. After his own promotion, Nile was the best active operative in SCORPIA's arsenal. He had the necessary skills for it and it would be worthwhile investment if he could be trusted to remain loyal after everything that had happened. Yassen himself had been on plenty of clean-up assignments over the years as well. Sometimes plans failed and demanded a harsher approach to be salvaged.

"Kurst's second?" he asked instead.

"He will be handled. Zeljan's security detail has been removed already."

As expected. They were too loyal to be trusted again. Kurst had deliberately cultivated that in them. The same would have happened to Alex should Yassen himself have somehow fallen short of the board's expectations. Like Kurst's security detail, Orion was considered too loyal to Yassen to be trusted by anyone else. Yassen had very deliberately cultivated that impression, too.

For long seconds, neither spoke. Dr Three's expression was unreadable. Yassen had enough practice to know that his was as well.

"Young Alex ran a significant risk," the doctor finally said.

He had. Yassen knew that, too. A part of him had even expected something like it to happen eventually. "He is still young. He will learn restraint in time. I am, however, surprised to hear you use his name."

"He is more Alex Rider than Orion at the moment," Dr Three said. "I would blame Starbright's influence, but I suspect that Orion died to Zeljan's bullet. He forced young Alex to make the choice, and he remained Alex Rider. Reckless, impulsive, and defiant, however well he tries to hide it. A temporary state, I expect, but no less of an annoyance for it."

Unwanted qualities in an operative, the doctor did not need to mention. For the most part just as unwanted in a future chief executive of SCORPIA, though the defiance could be worked with. As for the rest … Yassen had time.

"I am not surprised. He was always attached to Starbright. An absent uncle, no other living relatives … it was only natural he would latch on to the one person to show him some measure of affection. She was always his weak spot."

"Dangerous," Dr Three said, "in someone in such a trusted position as his, though at least he is aware of the seriousness of the risks he took."

Yassen nodded, conceding the point. Perhaps it had been a mistake to allow those attachments but he couldn't bring himself to regret it. Perhaps he would later, if Starbright became too much of a problem, but he hadn't been able to make himself destroy everything that made Alex Rider who he was. He could have. A fourteen-year-old child was no match for the manipulations of someone trained by SCORPIA and Dr Three, and Alex Rider had already been trained to adapt through Ian Rider's rather unique child-rearing methods. Between those two things, Yassen could have shaped the child into whatever he wanted.

At first it had been the glimpses of Hunter he had caught in the man's son that had stayed his hand, the expressions in those familiar eyes and that hard determination to see things through once he had made up his mind. Then it had been Alex himself; stubborn and defiant and loyal in a way that Hunter would never have been. Sentimentality was deadly in their line of work, but Yassen couldn't bring himself to regret it.

"There is still the matter of the debt he incurred," Dr Three continued.

Yassen's body language cooled a degree. "As his superior, that debt falls to me."

Alex was his. Yassen would deal with a debt to the doctor before he allowed the man possession of Alex.

Dr Three's expression was unreadable. The doctor was hard to read for Yassen even at the best of times. Now was not one such time. "Help given freely will teach him nothing."

"He is not yet even sixteen. I am also well aware that you have deliberately cultivated an attachment in him," Yassen said. "You can hardly fault him for acting on such an attachment when he had no other options left."

This time the doctor was the one to nod, accepting the point. Yassen had expected it to a degree, though he was still surprised at how well the man had managed. Alex was genuinely terrified of the doctor but there was still a degree of … trust, Yassen supposed. Even if it had been in the most dire of circumstances. A degree of attachment. A year and a half had turned Alex into a competent assassin but Yassen doubted that he would be able to kill Dr Three. Fear and attachment. The doctor was exceptionally good at his job.

Fear, attachment, and the conditioning from his resistance to interrogation training that Yassen had suspected but seen no proof of until now. The doctor had made no attempt to hide it during their talk after Chase had been disposed of. Alex was compromised, like potentially every other Malagosto graduate in the past twelve or thirteen years. Yassen would have to deal with that now. A part of him could respect what the man had accomplished. A far greater part of him knew exactly how much of a problem it could become.

"There remains also the matter of his … conditioning."

Another nod. "A strong conditioning but not permanent. It is a trained response and can be trained out of him again."

"At a price."

"At a price," Dr Three agreed.

Another debt, then. "I assume you have something in mind."

"Retirement." The doctor looked indulgently amused. "I am quite familiar with executive board politics. You may not have the experience but you have the instincts, and my interference in your plans became quite an annoyance. I'm sure you were already planning to solve that little issue now that our temporary alliance has served its goal. My price for young Alex's life and the removal of his instinctive response is a quiet retirement on my own terms. SCORPIA will continue to fund my research. In return, I will be delighted to help with any unusual cases. Another two or three years, perhaps. I am quite fond of this school and would hate to see its future wasted. I wish to ensure it will remain acceptable in my absence, and it will take time for Alex to overcome his conditioning. Repeated exposure will see to it. It will hardly be pleasant for him to be reminded so often, but it will be effective. He will remain my assistant during his recovery. We will see to his progress when he is cleared for field work again."

The same terms Dr Three had mentioned during that first meeting. Yassen wasn't surprised that the doctor had expected him to go back on their deal and he didn't bother to deny it. There was no honour among the executive board, there never had been, and they both knew it. The doctor would have had plenty of time to arrange for some sort of insurance in Yassen's absence. And that wasn't considering what could have been done while Alex had been in surgery.

Yassen could easily arrange for the doctor's permanent removal, but that would be an unacceptable risk to Alex. The fact that the doctor knew that Alex would be valuable enough to Yassen to be a suitable bargaining chip … it was not a pleasant thought, but Yassen suspected he would have to accept it. At least the doctor was, if not trustworthy, then unlikely to turn on them. Yassen believed him when he stated he had no interest in politics anymore. The doctor had always been a man of scientific curiosity at the heart of it.

Considering the sort of payment he could have asked, it was a small price. Alex would need to be around the doctor, certainly, or repeated exposure would be impossible, but Yassen wasn't blind to the educational opportunity it offered as well. Undesirable circumstances, perhaps, but … educational. They could always renegotiate the deal if it came to that.

"Agreed."

As the man had undoubtedly expected, because he carried straight on to the next point. "Starbright will require some consideration. I have sent her off in the company of Crux for whatever necessities she will need. I expect a thorough report on her when they return."

Yassen had given some thought to it already. In any other case, he would have been tempted to simply remove the potential problem she posed. He was not blind to the influence she still held over Alex or the potentially disastrous effect she might have on the child's training or their continued partnership. It would have been far more convenient if she had never met Alex again.

In any other case, Yassen would have removed the problem she posed. In Starbright's case, however …

"Target her, and you will lose Alex." Yassen knew it without any doubt. "Part of the price for his willing cooperation with my plans was her safety upon our success. He knew she would become a target when his position as my likely successor became known. He will never believe an accident. Her death by whatever means would be – inconvenient."

"He has developed a healthy sense of paranoia," Dr Three agreed. He sounded pleased. "I am aware of the problem. Even your hold on him is not strong enough to bear such a strain. If young Alex's strong attachment to her is not reciprocated, it will leave a sufficient opportunity to wear down that attachment. Given time, she can be made to resent him for the circumstances she has now found herself in. It may take months and a good amount of patience, but that bond could be broken and he would learn an important lesson on human nature. It would be easy to dispose of her afterwards."

"And if it is?" Because Yassen strongly suspected that would, in fact, be the case for Alex's attachment to her. Inconveniently strong from both of them.

"She knows too much already to be allowed to leave." Dr Three paused. "If their bond is that strong, perhaps the best approach is to simply keep her. Let her be convinced it is of her own choice. Not here at the school in the long term but elsewhere in the organisation. It would not be impossible to find a place for her. She would be tied to SCORPIA, with strong incentive to keep our secrets – for Alex's sake, if nothing else – and under control. Perhaps not the cleanest solution, but young Alex does have unusual potential. He is valuable."

Valuable enough to make such an approach worth it.

Yassen nodded. For now they could do nothing else. Crux would return with a thorough report on her impressions of Starbright. They would take it from there.

Starbright's situation settled, the conversation drifted off to other topics. She was an inconvenience. Yassen would have preferred her to stay a continent away from Alex but that plan had obviously gone down the drain. He supposed he would just have to live with that.

* * *

Next: Part two.


	69. Interlude: Six Weeks, part II

A/N: Parts of this (Jack and Byrne's sections) actually stretch slightly into the next chapter, so I guess it's kind of a preview?

* * *

Jack Starbright's first impression of Yassen Gregorovich was less than favourable. She had seen photos, of course. Not good ones, since neither MI6 nor the CIA had what anyone would call decent, up-close photos of the man without a disguise, but enough to recognise him.

The photos didn't convey what the man was like in person. In any other circumstances, she might have admired the grace he moved with. He was … thirty-five? Thirty-six? The files hadn't agreed, but he looked five years younger than that. No older than her. In Yassen Gregorovich, knowing what he was and what he could do, that same unearthly grace and unnaturally silent movements combined with glacially cold eyes became a constant, implicit threat.

And worse, she saw the echo of the same in Alex now. A year and a half older and four inches taller than the last time she had seen him, Alex was still in that awkward state between child and adult, but even now, even injured and pale and exhausted, he was still far more graceful than any teenager his age should be. He still had the warmth in his eyes, still looked for physical comfort – Ian had never been an affectionate person but Jack had, and Alex had latched on to that – but there was also a distance that had never been there before. He was cautious. Always aware of his surroundings, even now.

She supposed she couldn't blame him. This _was_ a school of murder and he had been pretty clear in his warnings.

This was the place where Alex Rider had spent three months. The place where he had spent his fifteenth birthday. The place where he would probably spend his sixteenth, too. The guest rooms were more high-end hotel than anything, the food was great, the weather was mild … it could have been mistaken for vacation homes if it weren't for things like the training grounds and the shooting range.

The glimpses she had caught of the students were all disturbingly normal. None of them stood out. None of them looked like what she expected assassin trainees to look like. And all of them had known exactly where Alex was at any given moment he was within sight, she had noticed that, too. It could have been curiosity. She strongly suspected it had more to do with Alex's _boss_ and the training he'd had.

Yassen Gregorovich in person could have been carved from ice for all the emotion he showed, and yet Jack still got the distinct impression that the man wasn't happy in the least. Not with Alex's injury and certainly not with her presence there. She was a complication, even she could see that.

Alex had always listened to her, but he'd had a sixth sense for Ian's presence when the man had been home. Probably, Jack had always figured a little bitterly, exactly because the man had been gone so frequently. He had been Alex's only living relative and that bond wasn't easily broken.

She saw that same sort of sixth sense now in Alex's interactions with his new _boss._ Alex was aware of his presence in a way he had never been with anyone else. He responded to minute gestures and the slightest change in tone of voice and he didn't even seem to be aware of it.

 _Trained for five months in complete isolation,_ Byrne had told her. She had known on some level what that might mean. It was something else to see it in person.

Gregorovich hadn't broken Alex Rider but he had trained him to respond instantly and without question. Jack's presence was a threat to that. Alex still cared about her, even a year and a half with a terrorist organisation hadn't changed that, and Gregorovich knew it.

After her first actual meeting with Gregorovich – that didn't involve _someone creeping into her bedroom to drug her_ – a part of Jack wanted to take Alex away from there and somewhere safe; flee from everything, from the CIA and MI6 and SCORPIA, and start over somewhere else.

Another part of her knew that Gregorovich was right. Maybe it hadn't been too late when Blunt had first taken an unhealthy interest in Alex, but the moment he had left London … the hunt that had been set into motion had been pretty revealing to Jack. Now, with a year and a half of training and experience on top of that – and more blood on his hands than Jack wanted to consider – Gregorovich was right. Alex Rider would never have a normal life. He would never be left alone. It didn't matter if Alex knew what he had agreed to – and Jack really doubted that he had – because it didn't change the fact that there was no realistic way out anymore.

Maybe London had been the point of no return. Maybe it had been Cornwall. Maybe it had been the first time Ian Rider had decided to train his young nephew. Jack liked to think it had been a way to help keep Alex safe. That Ian hadn't wanted him tangled up in that kind of world but had known the risk was always there. She didn't know for sure, though, and she never would.

Ian Rider had planted the seed, MI6 had pushed him into it, and Gregorovich had closed off all other options. Alex Rider wasn't safe, the bullet wound could attest to that, but Jack couldn't even claim MI6 wouldn't eventually have caused something just as bad. Or worse. Jack had seen Alex's condition when he returned from Russia and that mad general. _Just a vacation_ , MI6 had claimed. Alex had returned injured and traumatised from seeing a man kill himself right in front of him. And then there had been that school. Alex had returned with a pierced ear, a number of injuries, and a deranged _clone._

Alex Rider had nearly died in a military base in Russia, and he had done it for her. Jack didn't doubt that if Alex had followed orders and shot her like he was supposed to, he would have been perfectly safe. Maybe not mentally but he wouldn't have spent hours in surgery and the next many months recovering. He had been dying, that doctor of his had strongly implied that on the phone and Jack hadn't doubted it, not with the amount of blood and the horrible paleness of his skin, but he had still done everything he could to get her out of there.

Yassen Gregorovich and SCORPIA had spent a year and a half turning him into a cold-blooded killer. Everyone from MI6 and to the CIA had warned her about him over and over until she snapped and kicked them out or ignored them – _not the boy you knew, he's dangerous, a killer –_ but when it had mattered, he had been Alex Rider. Not Orion or whoever SCORPIA wanted him to be.

Alex Rider.

 _Stuff it, Byrne,_ Jack thought vindictively. She felt bad for the agents that had been killed during her kidnapping, they hadn't asked to get involved, but Byrne was the one who had put her there in the first place.

Jack's only comfort right now was that Gregorovich at least seemed to worry about Alex, too. It was barely noticeable but it was there between the lines, though she suspected that was probably only because of the relative privacy of the quest quarters.

The man closed the door to Alex's room behind them. Alex needed his rest, would need it for a good while to come, and Jack suspected that Gregorovich, like her, had done his best not to stress Alex any more than he already was.

For a moment they simply stayed there in the hallway. Neither spoke. Gregorovich watched her with a cold, analytical expression. Jack glared right back, not about to let herself be intimidated, no matter how intimidating he actually was.

Five months in isolation. With _that._

She couldn't even begin to understand whatever passed for logic in that man's mind when it came to Alex. _I killed his last living relative, so he's mine now? I got him trapped by MI6, so the reasonable way to make up for that is to train him as a killer and get him on every terrorist watch list in the world?_

John Rider had been Yassen Gregorovich's mentor once upon a time if the brief file Joe Byrne had let her see had been right. It wasn't something MI6 was about to admit, she had been told – and no wonder; having to explain why one of their undercover agents helped train one of the best assassins in the world would probably be a political nightmare – but Byrne, like Blunt, had a way to get information. SCORPIA obviously did, too, _and_ had a file on her like the CIA and MI6 did, and wasn't that a delightful thought?

She wasn't about to believe she had the whole story. With an undercover agent involved, it had to be complicated, and she doubted anyone beyond Gregorovich still alive knew the full truth of it. And Gregorovich did not strike her as the type to share that sort of thing with anyone.

Gregorovich had been trained by Alex's father, had killed Ian Rider even knowing who the man was, and then he had spared Alex. The file had mentioned that, too. Guilt? Repayment for something only Gregorovich could explain? A way to make up for Ian Rider's murder? Jack had no idea. And then he had taken Alex away. His words said he had done it to give Alex a choice, but that could easily be just a convenient excuse.

Possessiveness? An unhealthy fixation? An uncharacteristic feeling of responsibility? Or a way to get even with a man who was long dead and had turned out to work for SCORPIA's enemies? The CIA's file leaned towards the last option. Jack, after meeting him, still wasn't sure, but she was starting to suspect that now it was a genuine sense of … concern, maybe. He cared, she suspected, in his own cold-blooded way. She wouldn't be surprised if Byrne's people were right and it had started out as a way to get even, but Alex had a way of worming his way past people's walls, and the luck of the devil on his side when that wasn't enough.

If anyone could have managed to turn a situation like that into the better – even just slightly – it was Alex Rider.

Finally Gregorovich broke the silence.

"Alex will need time and rest to recover. I assume I can trust you not to upset him unnecessarily." Cold eyes watched her carefully and his voice left little doubt that it was less of an assumption and more of an order.

"If I can assume I can trust you people to let him actually _have_ the time he needs to recover," Jack bit back. Four months was the estimate she had heard. She couldn't imagine MI6 would ever have left him alone for that long, not after everything he had been pulled into in the months after Ian's murder.

Gregorovich nodded slightly, conceding the point. "Consider the investment his training has been. SCORPIA does nothing for selfless reasons, but even though he has paid back everything he owes for his schooling, the loss of a talented operative is still a waste. For that reason alone, SCORPIA will give him the necessary time to recover. His exclusive contract is strict, as it is for every operative, but it does guarantee him whatever time he needs to recover after injuries."

Of course they didn't care about Alex as a person, or the fact that it was a fifteen-year-old kid recovering from being shot in the chest, but Jack still supposed it was better than MI6 in that regard. At least they seemed willing to take whatever time needed … even if he had been injured protecting her and not working for them. But then, from a purely practical point of view, she also knew it was limited what Alex would be able to do in the field with that sort of injuries.

What did he even get paid while he was on medical leave? The thought appeared out of nowhere. It was probably in his contract. She tried to imagine what else was in it and realised she probably didn't want to know. He had signed when he had graduated, hadn't he? He had been barely fifteen at the time. Fifteen and a few weeks old when he had signed over his life for the next five years. She doubted he had been given much of a choice. Even less than MI6 had offered. At least they would only have sent him off to an institution if he had refused. She didn't doubt SCORPIA would have killed him instead.

"How generous." She couldn't quite keep the bitterness from her voice.

"Considering what MI6 offered him, yes." Gregorovich didn't seem to know the meaning of sarcasm, or maybe he just ignored it. "SCORPIA pays him quite well for his skills."

"As a killer."

Gregorovich shrugged slightly, indifferent, but didn't dignify that with a response. They both knew what it would be.

 _Still better than MI6,_ and the worst part was that he was right. She would argue that being back in London within Blunt's line of sight would be better than being a paid killer but -

\- Even she wasn't sure about that. Not with everything that had happened. And what did it say about the world that _those_ were the two choice Alex had been offered at fourteen? He should have been in school. He should have hung out with Tom and complained about homework and come home with bruises from football or karate. Not been the apprentice of the man who murdered his uncle or need months of recovery from being shot in the chest.

And still, with Blunt as the alternative … Blunt, or Byrne, or whoever, because they were all cut from the same cloth -

Jack sighed. She felt tired all of a sudden. Mentally exhausted. "I don't like this."

Maybe Gregorovich understood. His expression grew slightly less cold. "That was never a requirement."

No, Jack supposed. It never had been. Not for her and certainly not for Alex.

"Now what?" she asked.

Gregorovich watched her for a moment. "Now we let him rest. Tomorrow, Dr Three wishes to speak with you about your options."

Wasn't that just reassuring? Jack just knew she would sleep _fantastic_ tonight.

* * *

Crux knocked on the door to Three's office an hour after her return, just as the quietness of early evening was slowly starting to settle. He waved her inside with a small gesture and accepted the thin folder she gave him.

A brief glance at it revealed a three-page preliminary report on her impressions of Jack Starbright and the woman's relationship with Alex Rider, and the doctor nodded slightly. There would be a full report by morning, he didn't doubt that.

Efficient as always. It was no wonder Brendan had been annoyed to lose her.

"Initial impressions?"

"She is aware of her precarious situation," Crux began. "She holds no fondness for us but she also has nothing but resentment for MI6 and the CIA. She feels guilty for what happened to Orion. It's her belief that if she had done more to stop Blunt's use of him, perhaps things would not have come to this."

A useful bit of information. Not an unreasonable thought, though there was very little a normal person could do to stop someone like Alan Blunt from forcing his will through by whatever means. Still, potentially useful down the line. A weakness to keep in mind.

"She is more family than housekeeper to him," Crux continued. "Ian Rider was frequently absent and that from an age where Orion was young enough to still look for physical comfort and closeness. Starbright was only twenty-one at the time. It was perhaps not surprising that the bond they developed was closer to family than anything."

Three had expected it based on the files they already had, but he always did prefer a third – or fourth, or fifth – opinion. It never hurt.

"Can we destroy their bond?"

Crux hesitated before she answered, enough to draw Three's attention. "Yes, sir, but it may not be the best course of action."

Curious.

"She is a liability and a significant complication in Orion's training," he said, more mildly inquisitive than condemning.

"She is also one of his few remaining attachments. To remove it in such a fashion may have unpredictable results on his mental stability. He is very young."

A perfectly reasonable argument. Still, there was something. The hesitation. The caution. Not in regards to Starbright, Crux had no reason to care about her, but Orion …

She was a brutally effective operative with genuine talent in the art of torture and interrogation. She had survived for more than a decade in the field for a reason. Like all of Malagosto's better students, she did not have a shred of morals. Still …

"You have grown fond of him." It was not a question. Three didn't doubt his conclusion. Alex Rider had an unusual ability to find compassion even in those who should have had none left. The Rider genes, perhaps. His father had been admired by his students, respected by most who had met him, and been on friendly terms even with a number of people not known for their patience with such things at all.

Crux made no attempt to deny it. "Yes, sir." Quiet but firm. She would not apologise for it, and Three certainly hadn't expected her to. At best it would make no difference. At worst, it would count against her as one more unacceptable weakness.

Three was not surprised Orion had developed an attachment to Crux. He was fifteen, mostly alone in the world, and Crux had already had plenty of incentive to cultivate a good relationship even during their first meeting. It was somewhat more of a surprise that the attachment was mutual to a degree.

Crux didn't speak but waited silently for his verdict.

"Convince me," Three finally said. Her recommendation was not too far from Yassen's, though their reasons behind were vastly different. Yassen had accepted Starbright's survival as an inconvenience to suffer through for the sake of Orion's continued loyalty. Crux … Three doubted that 'pitied' was the right term to describe Crux's feelings on the matter, but there was a degree of sympathy for Orion. Enough to make her argue for letting him keep what was a potential liability.

"The advantages of disposing of such a liability would not make up for the risk we would run in removing Starbright, even if we convinced her to leave and break any bond with Orion of her own free will. Yes, she is a strong influence on him, sir. It will almost certainly interfere with his continued training at times. It still pales in comparison to the influence Mr Gregorovich has on him. If Starbright pushes the matter too far, Orion will choose Mr Gregorovich. Perhaps not easily, perhaps not lightly, but their connection is too strong and Orion has invested too much in their plans now to back down. She will live, she will be an unwanted influence on him, but she will also be shielded and protected by SCORPIA, and Orion will know that."

Calm, sensible arguments. Three had expected nothing less. Even Orion was slowly learning not to argue with his emotions.

Crux hesitated slightly again. "He is also in possession of an insatiable curiosity, sir. His file makes that abundantly clear. He nearly killed himself to gain access to Ian Rider's office. What would he do, then, to get to the bottom of the matter should Starbright die? He would never believe natural causes or an accident, and he has the best training and resources that SCORPIA and Mr Gregorovich can give him to aid in that investigation."

She could not be aware of it, but her words echoed Yassen's on the matter. Different points of view but the same conclusion. That spoke volumes to Three.

Crux fell silent. Three did not speak as he considered their options. To allow Orion to keep such an attachment was a risk. He would go far for Starbright, he had proven that already. She was a liability. To remove her …

Perhaps it was indeed one of those times when the risks outweighed the benefits. A talk with Starbright to get a first-hand impression of what he had to work with would be in order. If she were to prove too much of a problem, perhaps she could be convinced to see sense over time. She had no training in resisting psychological manipulation and Three was an acknowledged expert within the area.

And Orion knew very well just how much of a liability SCORPIA would consider her. To take the more generous approach would strengthen the attachment Three was slowly cultivating in him. Would make him more likely to listen to future lessons. Alex Rider would never make an assassin of Cossack's calibre, but that wasn't Yassen's intentions for him, either. Perhaps a different approach, then. Work with his personality and not against it. Encourage the desirable traits he already had and work to remove the more undesirable ones. He had an unusual ability to make people let down their defences around him. That could be useful, too.

Finally he nodded.

"The kind approach, then. Thank you."

Crux nodded once before she got up and left, the unspoken dismissal all she needed. Three settled down with the short report. A liability and an inconvenience both. He supposed they would just have to deal with that.

* * *

Nile found himself back at Malagosto shortly before midnight. He had been summoned by Dr Three for a new assignment at his earliest convenience. Nile was experienced enough to know that this meant the doctor wished to see him immediately and to act accordingly. If the man had already retired for the night, well, there were guest rooms available.

Dr Three did not look surprised to see him at such a late hour but then, very little surprised the doctor in Nile's experience.

"Sir," he greeted him once the man had gestured for him to enter the office and close the door. There was a sealed envelope on the desk. Nile was quite familiar with those, and the sight of it made some of the tension in his body, unnoticed by him until now, ease a little.

A legitimate assignment, then. Not merely an excuse to get him to Malagosto because Dr Three had decided he had become too much of a risk to leave alive.

"Yesterday, Mikato became the unfortunate victim of a successful assassination," the doctor said and handed him the envelope with the assignment. "His second in command has become a liability. I trust you will solve the issue in a satisfactory manner."

"Yes, sir." Nile didn't look at the papers yet. He could go through the details later. He had met the man in question a few times. Competent and deadly, nowhere near Nile's own skills, but usually surrounded by others. No matter. Nile had a combat team to call on that was used to his unique sort of assignments, and if Mikato's second in command had to be removed, it paid to do a thorough job and remove any other potential issues at the same time. "Mr Chase's cover?"

"It is no longer necessary. You did quite well. Any further issues in that regard will be taken care of."

Nile nodded. Accepted the compliment for the high praise it was. He had almost expected Mikato's death sooner or later after what had happened to Brendan Chase, but he carefully didn't ask about the details. Unwanted curiosity could be lethal.

"It may be of interest to you that young Orion has been injured but should recover without issue," the doctor continued. "Your mentorship of him did not leave as strong of a bond as he has with Yassen but it still remains. He was shot in the chest when Zeljan failed to take all variables into account in his planning. Zeljan and his bodyguard, I'm afraid, did not survive."

Unwanted curiosity could be lethal but it was obvious to Nile now that the doctor _wanted_ him to know. Kurst was somewhat more of a surprise, the man had always had brutally competent security, but Nile supposed that if anyone could get past that security, it would be Yassen Gregorovich – or his apprentice.

Kroll, Yu, Duval, Chase. Now Mikato and Kurst as well.

That left the doctor himself and Gregorovich on the executive board. Could SCORPIA even function with so few leaders? Nile had no idea but he would have to assume Dr Three and Gregorovich had taken it into account, since he was almost sure that every single recent death on the board except Kroll had been by their hands. Chase, Mikato, and Kurst certainly had been, and Yu and Duval would have demanded an almost impossible amount of inside information for someone not already near the top of SCORPIA's hierarchy.

Nile had been twenty-one when he had learned just how lethal executive board politics could be, but this was a step beyond that.

His only response was a slightly delayed nod. "Thank you, sir."

The reply could be interpreted in a number of ways. Based on the doctor's nod, Nile's meaning had carried across.

"You will report to Yassen."

Nile nodded and mentally filed that bit of information away. The doctor and Gregorovich remained allies for now, then. Could SCORPIA be run by two people? How long would a partnership stay stable? And where did Orion fit in? Another number of questions that were above Nile's current pay-grade.

"Yes, sir," he merely said instead.

The doctor smiled. It didn't quite reach his eyes. "Excellent. Dismissed."

Nile didn't need to be told twice.

* * *

The first time Jack had met Dr Three, she had been tired and stressed and still overwhelmed by everything. The second time, at breakfast, Alex had deliberately placed himself between her and the doctor.

Now, on her own with Dr Three for the first time, Jack understood why Alex had warned her so carefully about him. There were guards outside the building, of course, and one of his creepily silent assistants in the room next door, but right now they were entirely alone.

Dr Three looked harmless. He looked exactly like the retired school teacher Alex had described him as. Kind. Patient. Utterly innocent. Jack could have walked past him on the street anywhere and never given him a second thought.

 _Interrogation expert. Psychological manipulation. Research subjects._

She wondered what exactly it said about things that with no way out, this was the man Alex had called to get them out of that military base. And that he had actually managed, too, despite being several time zones away.

She settled down in the chair across from the doctor's. It was soft. Comfortable. She could feel herself relax slightly without even intending to.

Dr Three watched her for long seconds. Jack refused to speak first. Finally the man broke the silence.

"You have put us in an unusual situation, Ms Starbright. We strongly discourage personal connections and yet young Alex holds a strong attachment to you even after everything. Strong enough to act remarkably rashly in his decision to save your life. Any other operative would have been left to deal with the fallout on their own."

"Except for Alex." Had Alex known, that split-second when he had made his decision? Or had he expected he was on his own? Maybe one day Jack would ask him. Right now she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer.

"He has a remarkable amount of potential," Dr Three agreed. "It would be a shame to see it wasted."

"I can't imagine you helped us out of there just because of that. You have to have other agents with a lot of potential as well." Jack didn't believe him for a second. Even with Gregorovich's words in mind, that Alex could very well end up on the executive board himself, it didn't change the fact that Alex was _fifteen_ and influence like that was years away at best.

"We do," the doctor conceded. "Alex is unusually valuable to SCORPIA, however. In such cases, the additional effort would be worth it. You carry a large amount of valuable information after everything that has happened. In most other cases, we would simply have removed the risk you posed. In this case, we have other options."

 _Removed._ Killed, Jack's mind supplied with a slight chill. She had expected it but it was still something else to hear it spoke out loud in Dr Three's calm, reasonable voice.

"Because of Alex." Politics, then. Like MI6. She wondered how much of a say Alex had been given in it. Based on the little he had told her when they first arrived, it sounded like he had at least had some say in it this time. Probably not much, but some.

"Because of Alex," the man agreed. "Simply allowing you to leave is not a possibility. You would be captured or killed within the week. The first realistic option is that you return to your normal life with the knowledge that you carry the sort of information that could see Alex tortured and killed. He is a valuable target already and will only become more so in the years to come. This option would come with certain conditions. SCORPIA is on decent terms with the CIA and in a position to negotiate for your continued freedom. This influence does not necessarily extend to other government agencies with an interest in your knowledge, nor does it extend to foreign agents such as MI6, who are known to hold significant grudges. You would likely be settled in a safe-house again. You would also, before you would be able to leave this school, have to go through a course in resistance to interrogation. It is a practical course that will prepare you for the methods you might be exposed to in an attempt to gain access to the information you carry. All our operatives are required to pass it. A number of governments train their own people meant for high-risk operations in something similar."

A prisoner, then. Ignoring the course they wanted her to go through – and she had heard plenty about that from Alex – she could read between the lines just fine. She would be a prisoner in her own home, always looking over her shoulder, always expecting Blunt or whoever else to appear at her door. SCORPIA was willing to negotiate on her behalf, but SCORPIA was a terrorist organisation. Alex had been very clear on that, too. Their _help_ would make her even more of a target, and they knew it.

And even if it didn't … friends had been hard enough to find when she had spent most of her time helping her father. It had been seven years since she left home by the time she finally returned. There were few people left she remembered. Building a life – friends, a career, _family_ – when she was permanently stuck in a safe-house, constantly under surveillance, with a history that had huge black spots labelled 'Classified' … it had been hard enough in that safe-house the CIA had put her in, and that could be counted in months, not years.

"What's the other option?" she asked, a little proud that she managed to keep her voice steady.

"We find you a job." He made it sound so reasonable that for long seconds, Jack had no idea of how to react. "SCORPIA is the heart of a vast organisation. We have numerous subsidiaries, few of them officially affiliated in any way with us. Whatever your interests, we will find a way for you to make use of them. You will still need security and there are countries that you will not be allowed to visit under your own identity or without thorough training in undercover work, but you will have a degree of freedom that the CIA and other intelligence agencies would never allow you."

A nice way to keep track of her and within easy reach. Another gilded cage.

"And what if I refuse?" She was almost sure she knew – they would remove the threat she posed – but she had to ask, anyway.

"A suitably convincing death will be arranged for and you will remain a prisoner. A well-treated one, certainly, but a prisoner none the less. Young Alex would be unable to accept your death but he could be convinced to accept your imprisonment if that was the sole alternative. Perhaps in a few years he will learn to let go of his attachments to a point where your death would no longer be the problem it would be now. Perhaps he would gain enough influence to arrange for your release. Perhaps you would merely remain here, as a potential bargaining chip to be used if needed."

They wouldn't bother making the cage look pretty, then. Jack nodded, the gesture more a hard jerk than anything. Dr Three's expression seemed to soften a little. Jack didn't believe it for a second. Alex's warnings still echoed, and alone with the man, at the mercy of whatever whim he might decide to follow, she understood exactly why Alex feared him so much.

"You were a student at Saint Martin's School of Arts when you were hired by Ian Rider. Studying to become a jewellery designer, I believe." It was not a question. "MI6's file on you is quite thorough, as is the CIA's."

"And a terrorist organisation just happens to have a sudden need to hire a jewellery designer." Jack didn't even try to hide her scepticism.

"Would that be the sort of job you desire?" Dr Three sounded like he genuinely wanted to know, and Jack bit down her initial, sarcastic response and actually considered it.

She had started to look into it when her dad's rehabilitation had gone better than expected. She had looked further into it when she had been moved to that safe-house. It was something she could do at home to a degree with the right tools and without the awkward questions she might get elsewhere. She had liked to play with jewellery designs when she had been a teenager. She still enjoyed it now. She didn't have the training for it, just her incomplete education, but if SCORPIA was willing to go that far for her, then she was pretty sure they would arrange for that as well. If she was going to be a prisoner no matter what, she would damn well make sure to get the best terms possible for her own sake as well as Alex's. He felt guilty enough already.

"Maybe," she finally responded, a little cautious. "I never finished my degree."

"A minor matter," the man said, "and something that can easily be seen to. Has young Alex ever mentioned the equipment that MI6 sent him off with?"

That was … an interesting change of subject. Jack paused. MI6 had never given him much of anything that she recalled, other than trouble. But then, Alex had never talked that much about his missions, either. "He came back with his ear pierced once. He said they gave him an explosive ear-stud."

"MI6 has an exceptionally talented equipment-maker on staff. Derek Smithers. Alex may have mentioned him. I believe he is likely the only person in MI6's employ that Alex has any sort of fond memories of. MI6 refused to provide him with any sort of weapons for his missions but Smithers did supply him with other equipment. Some would deem them mere toys and gadgets, but they were all remarkably advanced pieces of technology. The exploding ear-stud was merely one of them. Communication, surveillance, technology meant to assist in an escape – one of the reasons why Alex survived his missions at all."

Jack didn't respond but just waited for the man to get to the point.

"SCORPIA does not work with the same sort of equipment, MI6 employs spies, not assassins, but I like to think we have them matched when it comes to some areas. We lured away one of DARPA's rising stars several years ago, an expert on surveillance and communication technology. Young Alex has made use of such technology on several occasions and does in fact owe his life to a small tracking implant. Few engineers make for good designers as well. One can adapt an existing object to conceal any number of interesting bits of technology but the result will never be as good as with something designed and built to work in perfect unison with it."

Maybe not exactly the sort of thing that Jack had planned to design and definitely not the sort of people she wanted to work for, but a small part of her could see the appeal. This was the option SCORPIA wanted her to choose as well, that much was obvious. Bribery and blackmail. If one method didn't work, the other would. If this was the sort of world she would live in now, then she was going to abuse it for all that it was worth, too. For her own and Alex's sakes both. They would never have a normal life again. Ian Rider and Alan Blunt and Yassen Gregorovich had made sure of that. They would just have to make the best of it now.

"SCORPIA will pay for any training and education I need," she said and drew on everything she could from Alex's careful stories. "No strings attached and no condition of having to pay anything back. No demands of how well I'll do, either. I'll get to stay in contact with my parents, I stay with Alex until he's got a clean bill of health again, and I get to see him regularly afterwards as well. Not just an hour here or there with someone glaring at us the entire time but actually spend time together."

"There will be times when Orion is on assignment," the doctor said and gave no indication at all about his opinion on her demands. "Yassen intends to train him as his successor. He is already Yassen's second in command, which is a heavy responsibility on its own. He will also need to spend a good while of his time in recovery with me, and perhaps later as well. Orion has some unfortunate tendencies towards flashbacks that will need to be trained out of him if possible."

Something about the last comment sent a shiver down Jack's spine along with a sense of dread on Alex's behalf. The rest …

"I don't expect him to spend every hour of the day with me, but I want to be around. He's been alone often enough and he almost died. I'm not leaving him again."

Dr Three smiled. Something about it felt slightly more genuine this time. "Then I consider those to be perfectly acceptable conditions. Perhaps, Ms Starbright, you will not be as bad of an influence on Orion as I feared. It appears he did not get his adaptability from his uncle alone."

Approval on her negotiation tactics by an expert in torture. She wasn't sure if she should feel sick or proud. Maybe somewhere in the middle. It did let her have some slightly better terms, at least.

"You will learn self-defence, of course," the man continued like it was the most natural thing in the world. Jack rather suspected he had something other than karate lessons like Ian signed Alex up for in mind. "Other lessons would be useful as well. Disguises, undercover work, a language course or two to broaden the range of identities available to you. All necessary should you wish to see your parents again. A solid knowledge of engineering would be useful as well while you finish your degree. As you wish to remain with Orion during his recovery, the simplest solution will be to allow you to follow the available classes here. Not all of them, of course, you will have little use for torture and interrogation lessons for one, but it would hardly make sense to send you elsewhere when we have excellent instructors available here. Most of our students, Orion included, have fond memories of this school. Once we have made full use of those options, we will look to university level courses."

Classes with a bunch of future assassins. Jack had the horrible feeling she had walked right into that one. It was still the best sort of deal she would get, she suspected, but the more he spoke, the more she also suspected that he had predicted exactly that response from her. Sure, she had done her best to negotiate, but her demands had been no surprise to him. She hadn't specified what classes she would take or where it would happen. She hadn't specified a lot of things. She was starting to regret that now, but it was a little too late to do anything about it.

The more spy-focused classes, then. At least she would get to avoid the bad ones, though Alex's stories about his close combat instructor … maybe it was time to get into shape. Before those classes started up. She had the sinking feeling that those classes would be a nightmare no matter what, and not being in good shape would just make it all the worse.

Dr Three fell silent. Waiting for her response, she realised. Did he expect her to object or go back on her part of the deal now that she knew exactly how much she hadn't taken into account? She certainly wasn't going to give him that satisfaction. Alex wasn't going anywhere for the next several months, so she wasn't, either. If they wanted her in school with a bunch of would-be assassins, well, she could handle that, too. Not her problem if she didn't fit in with their normal kind of students. She wasn't the one paying, either.

"All right." The words weren't a challenge, but only just.

Dr Three smiled. He reminded her a little of those crime shows where the serial killer turned out to be some kind, mild-mannered grandfather. "In that case, you may wish to tell Orion. He has been quite worried about you."

It was probably a polite dismissal. As long as it was a valid excuse to get out of that office, it was good enough for her.

* * *

Joe Byrne wasn't sure where things had gone quite that spectacularly wrong. Maybe when they had decided to keep Jack Starbright in a safe-house as bait. Maybe when the members of SCORPIA's executive board started mysteriously dying. Maybe when Yassen Gregorovich had stolen Alex Rider away from right under MI6's nose.

Maybe when Blunt had first decided to blackmail a kid into intelligence service.

Whenever it had been, Joe had been forced to deal with the reality of eight dead agents – SCORPIA had been spitefully thorough about the job – and one missing housekeeper who happened to be one of the last emotional connections to Yassen Gregorovich's second in command.

For a full week, there was nothing. No trace of Starbright and no idea of a motive. Plenty of theories, of course, but none that made quite perfect sense to Joe – if she had become a liability, they would just have killed her, and it made no sense to go through that much effort to gain some sort of potential leverage against Alex Rider. The kid was already broken to Gregorovich's will; he would do nothing to help Starbright unless Gregorovich allowed it.

And so they waited. Gathered what evidence they could. Buried their agents and considered their next move.

And then, a full week of silence later, the phone at Starbright's parents rang from a blocked number that Joe's people had no time to trace before the call was over. Three and a half minutes. Enough to get a message across but not enough to pinpoint her location. Jack Starbright had been briefed beforehand, there was no doubt about it.

" _Mom?"_

Joe Byrne knew the conversation by heart now. On the surface, there was nothing that useful to them. Reassurances that she was fine, that she missed them, that she didn't know when she would be back.

With nothing else to go on, that phone call was ruthlessly dissected. Did MI6 have a copy as well? Joe wouldn't be surprised. Right now he didn't care.

"She sounded stressed, sir, but not under duress," one of their voice analysts said. "She was careful about what she said but it didn't sound rehearsed."

"There was nothing we could isolate in the background to identify the location," another analyst added. "A decently soundproof room or somewhere isolated and away from civilisation. Maybe both."

The phone call was useless.

And then Hideo Mikato was reported dead. Assassinated a day before with the sort of ruthless thoroughness that could have been carried out by a number of the world's better assassins if it hadn't been for the fact that the killer had not worked alone. It was not the sort of style the Yakuza or their enemies favoured, either.

That ruthlessness combined with access to military support narrowed down the list somewhat significantly.

It could have been one of SCORPIA's competitors. It could have been a black ops team from any number of governments. Something about it made Joe more likely to pin the blame on Yassen Gregorovich instead, which made it an inside job. There would be no evidence either way, Joe was sure of that. Gregorovich had survived for fifteen years as one of the best assassins in the world for a reason.

It was a day later when one of their sources in Russia reported that Zeljan Kurst had failed to show up for a planned meeting several days prior and that a minor territorial dispute between two groups of criminals in the same area turned out to have been targeted at Kurst's security detail.

Kroll had been an inside job. The rest they were less sure about, though Joe was starting to have some heavy suspicions. Yu, Duval – Joe was almost certain now that the man was long dead, not just kidnapped – and now Mikato and Kurst as well.

Someone was hunting down SCORPIA's executive board. Someone was succeeding, too.

Who was left now? Chase – and Chase had already been the target of one attack on his home. Dr Three. Gregorovich, who had very likely been behind several of those assassinations in the first place.

Was Gregorovich systematically taking over? But if Byrne and the CIA had figured it out, the rest of the board would have, too. An alliance, then? Gregorovich didn't seem like the type for it but then, he hadn't seemed like the type for a board member, either.

And now Starbright's kidnapping. Starbright, whose only use to SCORPIA would involve Alex Rider. Gregorovich's second in command.

Not for the first time, Joe Byrne wished they had a high-ranking agent with SCORPIA. He was tired of working with second-hand information at best.

A high-ranking agent with SCORPIA. Subordinates with less morals would be nice, too. Maybe twice their budget as well, now that he was busy daydreaming, anyway.

Somehow, he was sure this was all Alan Blunt's fault.

* * *

Next: This really wasn't the sort of thing Alex wanted Jack tangled up in.


	70. Closure

A/N 1: A quick reminder that Jack's talk with Dr Three in the last interlude happens about halfway into this chapter.

A/N 2: Because I've had a couple of questions about it, I present to you the short story of why Jack is an art student and not a law one (because I had a lot of fun with it and I should probably explain): I use two sets of the books to write this – a proper, printed paperback set for the actual references, and an ebook set of dubious origins for the search function so I know where to look stuff up. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the two sets agree. With Jack's education, however, printed _Scorpia Rising_ says law student and the dubious ebook says art student/jewellery designer. I paused, shrugged, and settled down to figure out exactly what area of law SCORPIA would encourage because hey, that stuff is useful. Right up until the devil on my shoulder, masquerading as common sense, took one look at it and went "... The printed books can't even agree on Alex's birthday. Are you _really_ going to turn down the chance to saddle SCORPIA – and Yassen, and Dr Three – with an _art student?_ " And the answer was no. No, I wasn't. There may have been some mad giggling involved, too.

What with the massive headache that trying to figure out the Hunter-Cossack timeline gave me (there's a reason it's incredibly vague when I've made any references to it at all), I decided that going with the Rule of Funny on this was appropriate payback. So however the ebook ended up different – early draft, missed in editing, someone deliberately changed it – I owe that person a drink because that was entirely too (in)appropriate not to use. You're welcome, SCORPIA.

* * *

In the end, neither Yassen nor Jack killed, maimed, or otherwise injured the other. Alex was … well, cautiously optimistic might have been the wrong term, but he had some degree of renewed hope that things might work out.

An hour where Yassen and Jack were on their own, with no reason to play nice and polite for Alex's sake, wasn't exactly what Alex expected anything good to come from, but they had apparently tolerated each other. Reached some small degree of understanding, maybe. A very, very tiny one. Minuscule.

Really, Alex would take what he could get.

He went through dinner on autopilot, immensely relieved that Dr Three and Crux weren't there, and crawled back to bed immediately after. He felt tired all the time. The delayed reaction to stress on top of his physical injuries that he had been warned about, probably. Yassen had left before dinner with a promise to be back the following afternoon, and Jack had relaxed a little without him or Dr Three around, but it had still been a stressful evening. Until he knew what SCORPIA had in mind for Jack, it wasn't going to get much better.

Stress, injuries – whatever that tiredness was, Alex wasn't going to fight it. He went to sleep straight after dinner and didn't wake up again until the first light of early dawn started to creep through the curtains the following morning.

For a moment he just laid there and stared at the hazy light beyond his rooms. He wondered if he could just … stay there. Put the world on pause and never have to deal with the complications that came with everything. Jack and Yassen and his future with SCORPIA and everything else.

Dr Three wanted to talk with Jack _._ Part of Alex wanted to be there to protect her. Part of him knew that he wouldn't be allowed to and that trying to could very easily be interpreted as him being too dependent on her, which would in turn put her in all the more danger. His attachments were bad enough already without adding 'wilful disobedience of orders' to the list.

He wasn't even surprised it was Dr Three. Crux had probably given the man a thorough report on her hours spent with Jack, and while Yassen could read people unnervingly well, he was not the best person for that sort of conversation – or decision – and Alex knew that, too. It was too personal. Jack was the one person in the world who might be a stronger influence on Alex than Yassen himself was, and Yassen knew that, too. Dr Three had no emotional investment in the decision.

For now, Yassen and Dr Three were prepared to find some kind of option that everyone might be able to accept, however reluctantly. Alex wasn't going to risk that.

The world beyond the room was silent, any sounds cut off by solid walls and bulletproof windows. The only sound was the faint whisper of the air conditioning, barely necessary at this time of the year.

Eventually he got up as the minutes on his alarm clock inched ever closer to seven. His chest still hurt and would for a good while to come, but his stitches looked better already. His bruises were fading. He was regaining some bit of colour. He had always been a quick healer and not for the first time he was grateful for that.

Anxiety set in while he went through his somewhat slower than usual morning routine. He couldn't imagine what Jack was going through.

If there were any fairness left in the world, she would still have been back in the States; not in a safe-house and guarded by Byrne's people, but with her parents or in her own place or something else entirely, and doing … whatever she wanted, now that she wasn't responsible for Alex himself any more.

Then again, in a fair world Alex would never have been blackmailed in the first place. Ian would never have been killed. He would never have been made an orphan. He would have grown up in France, spoken French, and answered to an entirely different name and identity.

He would never have met Jack or Tom. He would never have lived in England.

He would never have met those few people with SCORPIA he genuinely _liked._ He couldn't imagine a world in which he had never met Yassen. Sagitta … he knew exactly what it felt like to be without any sort of backup, and he never wanted to experience that again. And Crux was entirely too delighted by torture and could probably recite Dr Three's works, but she had been kind when she had no reason to, and that _mattered._ It should never have been necessary in the first place, but it had happened and he couldn't change it and … he liked them. They weren't good people, but he got attached, and he couldn't help it.

Alex stared in the mirror for long minutes before he checked his clothes one last time, put on his shoes, and finished off with his usual weapons.

 _Usual weapons._

He didn't think about it much anymore. Only now, with Jack around, was he reminded of just what sort of situation he had ended up in where being armed was the expected standard.

He was fifteen. Two days from sixteen. A year ago, he had been just about to pass resistance to interrogation. If he had been back in London, he would have been complaining about maths tests and English assignments. Not been dealing with the sort of tests where failure resulted in becoming Dr Three's newest research subject.

Could Jack use a gun? He had no idea but he didn't think so. Part of him wanted her to keep that innocence, because he knew exactly what sort of cold-blooded shooting SCORPIA taught. Part of him wanted her to be able to defend herself in any way possible.

Jack met him in the hallway. She had probably heard his door unlock.

Sharp eyes took in his appearance then softened a little. Even Alex would admit he looked a lot better than he had the day before. Getting Yassen and Jack's first meeting out of the way had been a good start.

"Breakfast?" she offered.

His appetite was stronger than his anxiety, and his stomach rumbled before he could answer. Jack's smile was fondly amused. In Alex defence, he had slept for ten hours straight and he was a 'growing boy', as Dr Three insisted. No wonder he was hungry.

The students were there already. Still curious but still unwilling to approach them. Alex and Jack were early enough that the students hadn't started to leave for classes yet and a quick check revealed to Alex that Giosetta was back from RTI and still looked somewhat more tired than usual, that a new student had arrived, and that Calzaroni was missing – probably his graduation assignment as Alex assumed things had returned somewhat to normal with Kurst and Mikato's assassinations. Life went on. From what Alex had heard from Gordon Ross, it had been enough of a headache when they had moved the school from Venice, and SCORPIA didn't want to slow down the training of their future operatives any more than absolutely necessary.

Dr Three wasn't there, he didn't usually show up unless he had a good reason to, but Crux was. Alex considered his options for a brief second, then led Jack over to the staff tables. Be polite, be social, make a good impression. He represented Yassen and he didn't want to give Dr Three any other ammunition to use against him or Jack.

It also gave him an opportunity to introduce Jack to the rest of the people there and put faces to the names she had heard in his briefing. They had spent breakfast the day before with Dr Three and Crux. There hadn't been much time to be social beyond that and neither of them had felt up for it, either. And Alex had been exhausted during dinner.

Alex got some friendly smiles and greetings. That didn't really mean anything, but he still appreciated it. It made things easier for Jack, too, for all that he knew she had to be unnerved by the friendly atmosphere. Alex was used to it but it was a little creepy when he really considered it.

"Jack, these are Malagosto's instructors. Well, most of them, anyway," he added. Yermalov was missing, not that Alex was surprised. He was not a social man. At all. D'Arc wasn't there, but he didn't actually teach. The Countess had her own apartment in Abu Dhabi, and Alex wasn't sure if Dr Three could actually be considered an instructor these days. Crux had taken over those lessons, after all.

"You already know Crux," he continued. "Gordon Ross is the technical specialist -"

Jack listened carefully. Alex was sure she spent the entire introduction putting faces and other little details to the mental files she already had on them. Nothing that wasn't already in their files with any of a number of intelligence agencies, Alex had been careful about that, but still enough to give her a good idea of the sort of people they were.

Jack was all cautious politeness that slowly eased up a little as breakfast carried on. Ross could be a genuinely likeable person and Jet, like a number of Malagosto's better graduates, had mastered the friendly, approachable demeanour years ago. Between the two of them, it was hard to stay entirely cautious … even knowing that they were the same people who had helped train a fourteen-year-old as a killer and never even blinked.

Alex didn't talk much, mostly focused on his food and keeping a careful ear on the conversation around him, but it was still nice, familiar company. None of the instructors treated him any different than they had before.

Did they know what had happened in Russia? Alex wasn't sure. He doubted it would stay a secret for much longer in any case. They knew that Kurst and Mikato had been killed, at least, and they knew who had taken over in their place. Dr Three had always been treated with respect but it had definitely gone up a notch since Alex left for Russia.

Breakfast went both too fast and too slow. Only when most of the room had emptied and Alex and Jack had finished as well did Crux speak.

"Ms Starbright, Dr Three would like to see you today and speak about your options."

 _Options._ She made it sound so reasonable.

Jack agreed with that assessment, her expression told Alex as much, but to her credit she kept her voice perfectly polite and even. "All right. Now?"

"The doctor will be busy later in the day," Crux agreed. "He felt it would be better to get such a discussion out of the way."

Alex wanted to object. Wanted to give her a lecture's worth of last minute warnings and advice. He knew better than to try. He would just have to hope he had warned her enough already and that she would remember those warnings. Based on the past few days, he was pretty sure she would.

Jack didn't quite manage to hide her utter lack of enthusiasm. "Right. Alex?"

"I'll try not to be stupid, I'll rest, and I'll see you later?" Alex guessed.

It had to be a pretty good guess, because Jack ruffled his hair. "Got it in one," she said, then glanced at Crux in an unspoken question.

"The doctor is in his office," she replied. "I have class shortly. Idle hands aren't good for anyone, and certainly not our students."

Definitely not with the sort of tuition fees Malagosto charged, though Alex wasn't about to say that out loud. Jack nodded. Her expression hardened slightly as she turned and left. Alex watched until she vanished from view. His unease about it all had to be obvious, because Crux gave him a small, sympathetic look. It looked genuine.

"It will be fine," she told him. "You'll see. Ian Rider would not have hired someone who did not have a healthy degree of adaptability. She has shown quite a lot of it already."

Or maybe she just hadn't been in a place where it was safe to break down and freak out yet. Alex wouldn't have blamed her for that reaction, either. It just wasn't a safe one anywhere SCORPIA might see it.

"She's still a liability to SCORPIA," Alex said quietly.

Whatever Yassen had said, whatever incentives they might have to keep him happy and Jack reasonably content with her situation, it didn't change the fact that Dr Three had been displeased with him or the fact that Jack was a loose end. Maybe they leaned towards an acceptable solution for everyone involved, but that could still change.

Crux didn't respond. It wasn't like there was much to argue with. Maybe she knew something he didn't. He knew better than to ask that kind of question.

"Where is d'Arc?" Alex asked on a whim. Maybe he could ask Yassen, but Crux was there and apparently in on a lot of the plan, and he was curious.

"Our principal is hard at work," she murmured. "He has always done an excellent job with the school but he has, perhaps, become too comfortable in his position the past few years. It is – sensible to prove his value to the doctor now that there has been a change of management."

 _Change of management._ That was a polite way to put it. Alex wasn't surprised now that he heard the reason. If he had been in d'Arc's position, he would definitely have done the same. If Dr Three had proven willing to shoot a fellow member of the board in front of any number of witnesses, d'Arc had to know how very easily the doctor could decide he had become a potential problem and replace him as well. It was common sense to remove anyone who might have any reason to be less than satisfied with the new state of things. That d'Arc was alive at all was probably a testament to how well he had run the school over the years.

Alex hesitated. He should go rest. He had careful exercises he was supposed to start up with, too. And there was always some sort of studying he was behind on. His stack of Arabic homework from before his trip to Russia remained where he had left it, right on his desk. Still he hesitated.

"She will be quite all right," Crux said. His hesitation had probably been obvious, too, then. "I would offer you to sit in on my class to pass the time but I suspect you would prefer not to."

That got a small smile from Alex. "I appreciate the offer?"

Crux looked genuinely amused for a second, quite familiar with Alex's opinions on torture. Then it was gone again. "She should be back soon. Don't worry yourself sick."

Easier said than done, but he did appreciate the sentiment. Crux left for her class. Alex considered his options. He doubted he would have the focus to do any studying until Jack came back. Exercises it was, then. Dr Javadi would be pleased.

* * *

True to Crux's prediction, Jack returned twenty minutes later. She looked physically unharmed, at least. Bemused, a little unsettled, and like she had just been run over by a metaphorical truck. Alex didn't blame her; he had felt that way often enough after spending time alone with Dr Three, and she wasn't exactly used to that sort of person.

"I just got complimented on my negotiation tactics by a man who writes torture manuals for fun," Jack said as the first thing after she closed the door to Alex's room behind her. "I think I need a shower."

That feeling was certainly familiar, too. "You should try having him as a teacher," Alex muttered. And that wasn't even touching the can of worms that was resistance to interrogation.

Jack grimaced. Nothing more needed to be said to that. "Right. Apparently I have a job now. Well, will have a job, anyway. I need to take classes first."

Alex tried to imagine what an organisation like SCORPIA would hire someone like Jack for and drew a complete blank. Yassen had mentioned it as an option. Alex hadn't been able to imagine it then, either. He wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad sign, but training and pessimism made him lean towards bad. "A job?"

"They're not going to let me go," Jack started and held up her hand before Alex could voice the _I'm sorry_ and _this is my fault_ that were on his lips. "We both knew that already. It's not your fault, you didn't do this, you didn't tell that _man_ to target me, and you certainly didn't ask to get Blunt's attention."

"If I hadn't gone with Yassen, none of this would have happened," Alex pointed out. In all fairness and all.

"Do you really want to play the 'if I hadn't'-game?" Jack asked. " _Really?_ Because sure, maybe that wasn't the best option, but can you look me in the eye and tell me that Blunt was any better? He certainly wasn't happy you were gone and he put an awful lot of effort into getting you back. I'm pretty sure that wasn't because of a sudden concern for your well-being. And now you've got me _defending_ the same man who killed your uncle. You owe me for that, Alex."

… Good point. "... We can always just agree to blame everything on Blunt?" Alex offered, just a little hesitant.

Jack looked a little smug, the way she always did when she won one of their arguments. Alex was just happy to see her tension ease a little. "Good choice. So yes, they offered me a job. I'm not going anywhere and apparently it's worth it to keep you happy. They've got some people working on spy stuff, surveillance, like that man, Smithers, with MI6. You've used one of their tracking implants, apparently."

Alex hadn't thought about it in months but the reminder was enough to make him remember the sting of the needle again as the implant was injected. It was long gone now, just like the scar where Dr Three had cut it out again, but that didn't remove the memory.

He still wasn't sure what that had to do with Jack, though. She wasn't an engineer or whatever Smithers actually was. Alex had never thought to ask.

"I originally came to London to study to become a jewellery designer. You can always adapt a necklace or an earring or a cufflink to work with something -"

 _\- Like Smithers had -_

"- But the result is better if you can make the gadget first and design the rest around it. I never finished my degree, but the agreement is that SCORPIA pays for that and any other training I need. No strings attached. No demands that I pay anything back or requirements that I do well."

That covered the worst pitfalls, Alex supposed. It would at least keep her from being saddled with a debt the same size as Alex himself had been – or deal with the same consequences for failing a class. It still left room for a few dozen other things to show up and bite them later, but Alex knew better than to expect that Jack or he himself would ever be able to cover everything in that kind of agreement. And like Jack had pointed out, they wanted to keep him reasonably happy for now. That gave Jack a degree of protection.

It sounded like she would work for the same surveillance specialist that Adams had studied under for a month, and while he hadn't said much about it, Alex had never got the impression that it had been a bad month. That was something, at least.

Still, Jack sounded … suspiciously upbeat about it, everything considered. Alex smelled a diversion.

"So what _aren't_ you telling me?"

Jack's responding smile was a little wry. "You were always a little too observant sometimes. Your _doctor_ wants me to take spy classes. Disguises, another language or two, things like that. If I want to be able to go anywhere, it's going to be with a different identity. Since part of the deal was that I was going to stay with you until you're completely well again and the instructors here are supposed to be pretty good ..."

She trailed off. Alex felt a chill down his spine. "... You're going to be taking classes here."

He didn't wait for her to confirm his guess, his mind already running through the list of students for anyone who might pose a danger to her. It was one thing to only see the students during meals and other brief, random times. Classes with them, even just part of the time -

 _No one dangerous to her, no one likely to consider her competition, and with his own influence and Dr Three's patronage …_

Alex took a slow breath. Felt his pulse start to go back down to normal. SCORPIA didn't tolerate dangerously unpredictable students. They didn't tolerate someone who couldn't take orders. The students were trained killers, yes, but they were stable, sensible ones, or as much as any assassin in training could be.

Next question – what classes? She wasn't going anywhere near Crux's lessons if he had anything to say about it, that was for sure.

"Do you have a list of classes?"

"Not yet." Jack shuddered slightly. "He did rule out interrogation and torture, at least."

That meant the worst ones were out. Alex would wait and see exactly what classes Dr Three had planned for her before he would do anything, then. Hopefully she could avoid Jet's classes, too. He doubted poisons and gardening would be useful in that potential job the doctor had lined up for her. Ross' lessons … he was pretty sure she would be stuck with those. They would definitely want her to learn how to shoot, and while Ross considered MI6's gadgets merely entertaining toys, things like bomb schematics and other technical stuff fit a little too well with that sort of job, too. At least languages were harmless. Professor Yermalov's lessons definitely weren't, but hopefully Jack would manage. She would need to get in better shape first, but she wasn't the oldest student Yermalov had trained.

Resistance to interrogation … Alex would have to wait and see about that one. He had the horrible suspicion that if he tried to argue against it, that would have the exact opposite effect. Wait and see, then. He wasn't letting her go through that one, either.

Even if she only ended up taking half of the classes at the school, she would be kept busy. Very busy. She would start from scratch on pretty much everything and with no training at all to help her.

Maybe he could teach her the basics of shooting beforehand. Help where he could. And he knew what Yermalov considered 'good shape', so that was a start. He was pretty sure Dr Javadi would let him shoot if he was careful about it. He'd had a hard time teaching Hanna Graff, but he had learned a bit from being Ross' assistant on the range. Of course, Malagosto's students were a lot better trained in firearms already than Jack was, too. If she had any training at all.

"... Have you ever used a gun before?" Alex honestly had no idea. The topic had never come up.

"My granddad, well, my gran's second husband, liked to hunt. My parents didn't approve of it, but he showed me the basics of it. He figured that was a good thing for a young lady to know," Jack replied. "Nothing to keep the boys honest like a girl who can shoot. Of course, that was a hunting rifle, not a gun. And about fifteen years ago."

And meant for hunting animals, not for killing people, though Alex had met a number of people working for SCORPIA who didn't see the slightest bit of difference between the two. Still better than Hanna, though. He could work with that.

Shooting lessons, then. A decent workout routine.

"When are you supposed to start classes?"

"No clue," Jack admitted. "But I'm guessing soon. He didn't seem like the type to waste time. Better get in shape, I guess."

Alex remembered his own first few weeks at Yassen's safe-house and kept back a wince. It wouldn't be fun but hopefully she could manage. He had been in better shape, but he had also been a fourteen-year-old held to adult standards. "I'll write down a workout programme. The sooner you start, the better."

Had Dr Three expected Alex to help? Alex couldn't imagine he would be surprised, at least.

"Language classes," Alex continued. "Since you're not getting put through the full set of classes, you might get extra language lessons instead. Don't get behind on homework. There'll be a lot of it and once it starts piling up, the only way to get through the whole stack is to skip a night of sleep. They probably won't make you go through the night-time exercises, so there's that, but the instructors all think that idle hands and minds are a waste of time and money. I ended up having classes or doing homework fourteen to sixteen hours most days in the time I was here. I had tutoring in Arabic while I was here with Dr Three in January, and I'll probably go back to that when Dr Javadi lets me. That was every other day and about eight hours of homework between each lesson."

"So basically the exact opposite of the French lessons I had in high school. You know, that doctor made it sound so harmless," Jack said, a little drily. "I'm pretty sure he forgot to mention the massive amounts of homework."

"He'll probably want you fluent in at least one foreign language," Alex said honestly. "All of the graduates here need to be able to speak at least two languages. Most already know that many when they arrive, and then they get started on a new one instead. Yours will probably be French, if you know some already, otherwise it'll be whatever will be most useful."

Two languages at the bare minimum. Between Ian's upbringing and Yassen's training, Alex was working on his sixth. Yassen, who had never stopped learning, was making good progress on Japanese as his ninth.

"Like Russian and Arabic for you."

"Russian lets me pass for Yassen's son since I picked up his main dialect," Alex admitted. "And SCORPIA has a lot of business in Russia and the Middle East both. We've got several other languages in common but Russian makes us sound like family."

 _Family._ Alex had no idea of what a normal family was supposed to be like, and Tom's parents certainly hadn't been much of an example, but he had never thought much about his odd kind of family. Maybe that was part of why he had been able to adjust so well to Yassen's complicated place in his life. An odd mix of Alex's superior, mentor, partner, older brother, and father figure of sorts. He never had any normal expectations for family, so that made it easier to adapt.

Jack didn't comment on that, though Alex was sure she had some choice words about Yassen and his place in Alex's life.

Classes at Malagosto, then. Alex took a deep breath. Let it out again. Right. They could do this. They didn't have a choice. Jack should have been with her family back in the States, far away from SCORPIA and MI6 and the CIA, but if that wasn't an option, then they would make the best of this.

He hadn't considered for a moment what his decision might really mean to Jack and Tom when he had left London. He knew Jack would probably have to leave England, knew that Tom would miss him, but he'd had no idea of how far-reaching the consequences would be.

"I'm sorry," he said again. The words felt distinctly lacking but he couldn't find anything else to say. If he hadn't gone with Yassen, if he had just stayed in London and taken his chances with Blunt … "About everything. You shouldn't have been tangled up in this, too."

"Alex." Jack's voice, tired and weary and slightly sharp, made him fall silent and pay attention. "Stop blaming yourself. You made what felt like the best choice at the time, with very little information to go on, and I still can't say for sure you made the wrong one. You never asked for MI6's attention. You never made them or the CIA focus on me. You called me once but they already had me watched by then. It wouldn't have mattered what you did, they had already taken an interest in me. That safe-house Byrne found for me? That wasn't a temporary stay at some nice, anonymous suburban house somewhere for a week or two until things calmed down. I agreed because I didn't want to put my parents at risk but it was pretty clear from the beginning that it would be a permanent thing. Sure, Byrne was happy to reassure me I would still be able to work as long as I took _precautions_ , but that list of precautions would make it pretty much impossible to keep a normal job outside of the house in the long term."

Something in her expression twisted, part anger and part disgust. "I've spent enough time around their types to pick up a few things. I know there were cameras in the main rooms and the kitchen. I'm almost sure there was some sort of surveillance in my bedroom and bathroom, too. There were always agents around. I couldn't have company over and if I met with someone, it had to be arranged well in advance and with agents around to keep an eye on everything. Out of sight, of course, but I _knew_ they were there. And then I could sit there, in my nice safe-house, with the rent paid, no job to get me out of the house, few ways to make new friends, my every move watched every hour of the day, and with the knowledge that their main motivation was to use me as bait for the _fifteen-year-old kid that I helped raise._ And if not bait for you, then for the people who wanted you dead. They didn't care about me or my parents, that was just a convenient bonus. All they cared about was using me against you. I was going mad after the first two weeks, and they could easily have kept me there for years."

Jack paused. Took a steadying breath. "Tell me how that's any better than going along with this plan."

For a long time, Alex said nothing. He couldn't think of anything to say in the face of that rant. Jack didn't have a choice about going along with SCORPIA's plans? She clearly hadn't had any real choice when it came to the CIA, either. She would be watched? She would be – had been – in the States, too.

"... SCORPIA is a terrorist organisation," he finally said. The CIA did national security. SCORPIA did whatever someone was willing to pay enough for. Though sometimes that difference wasn't all that big.

"Byrne and the CIA _borrowed_ a fourteen-year-old child as cover for a couple of their agents. You left on a 'brief vacation' and returned injured and traumatised from Russia after seeing someone shoot themselves right in front of you. They knew it was risky but no one cared. No one asked what you wanted. No one questioned what a child was doing in the middle of an undercover operation. No one important enough to make a difference, anyway."

"None of this would have happened if I'd stayed in London," Alex continued stubbornly.

"None of this would have happened if MI6 hadn't _blackmailed a fourteen-year-old into intelligence service._ " There was an edge to Jack's voice, sharp and utterly unyielding, that got through where it hadn't before.

Alex stayed silent. For long seconds, neither spoke.

"You were barely fourteen," Jack continued, softer this time. "You were one of those people MI6 and the rest of them were supposed to protect, not exploit. You should never have been blackmailed and manipulated. You should never have been sent on missions. You should never have been backed into a corner to a point where taking the chance with your uncle's killer was the only real option you had left. You should have been protected by the adults around you and never had to worry about anything worse than your grades and embarrassing school crushes. It was never your fault, Alex. Whatever anyone might say or imply, it was _never_ your fault. Not for being curious. Not for agreeing to Blunt's terms just to keep the only bit of home that you had left. Not for going with Yassen when you had nowhere else to turn. I couldn't protect you, I don't think anyone in England could have, and that isn't your fault, either. I don't like Yassen, I don't like what he's made you do, but you're alive. Tell me Blunt could have guaranteed the same."

 _It was never your fault._

Something about the words made Alex's breath hitch and his eyes sting a little. He had heard them before but it was different now somehow, with Jack there and as tangled up in things as he was, and still she spoke them with every bit of conviction she ever had.

"It was not your fault," she repeated softly and ran a hand through his hair, the same soothing motion she had done a thousand times before. "And I'm going to keep telling you that until it sticks."

"Might take a while," Alex said, his voice a little unsteady. "People keep telling me I'm stubborn."

"That just makes two of us." Jack smiled. "You already gave me a good briefing on the teachers here. Now tell me about classes."

A nice, simple, straightforward question. Alex could do that. He took a deep breath, did his best to find his mental equilibrium again, and then he settled down to tell her about his three months of alternative education.

* * *

James: No romance for Alex, unfortunately. He's still way too overworked, traumatised, and increasingly suspicious of people (thank you, Dr Three) to have any interest in romance, much less be capable of a stable, healthy, romantic relationship at this point in time.

Next: Alex is pretty sure he had a lot less time to talk to people when most of his day was taken up by training, work, and living up to Yassen's standards.


	71. Necessary Conversations

A/N: As always, thank you for reading and for your reviews! :)

* * *

Yassen returned late that afternoon. Technically to speak with Dr Three, as Alex assumed there would be a lot of things to sort out now that the plan had actually worked and the executive board had been cut down to two members, but he did take the time to see Alex as well.

Jack was still there. They had grabbed an early dinner from the kitchens and retreated to Alex's room again, neither of them feeling all that social. The reunion of sorts was – awkward.

"Starbright," Yassen greeted her, cold eyes unreadable.

"Gregorovich." Jack's response was only marginally more polite.

"My congratulations on your acceptance at the school. The requirements are usually fairly strict."

Jack rolled her eyes. "No need to get insulting."

There was a ghost of what could have been amusement in Yassen's features, so slight that even Alex couldn't tell for sure. "I assume Alex has already given you a thorough briefing. You will attend class with future operatives far better trained than you, but you also have the protection of your unusual situation. The doctor's patronage is not something to be taken lightly. I recommend you do your utmost to live up to the opportunity you have been given."

Part warning, part threat, part order. Alex was used to that sort of thing by now. Based on the hard look in Jack's eyes, that was one more on a long list of things she would need to adapt to.

Yassen glanced at him in a silent question.

"I'll figure out a workout programme and get started on shooting lessons," Alex replied. It wasn't hard to guess what Yassen wanted to know. It wasn't like there could be any doubt that Alex would do whatever he could to help Jack. "I can do that without aggravating my injuries. It'll give her at least the basics to build on."

And if Dr Three and Yassen had both taken a personal interest in her training, he wanted to give her every advantage he could. Jack was smart, smart enough to do her best even if she ended up hating those classes. It wasn't like they had a choice. Neither of them wanted to risk disappointing her new patrons. He would need to get Dr Javadi's approval to actually spend time on the shooting range himself, but he doubted that would be a problem.

Yassen nodded. Aimed a long, pointed look at Jack.

She huffed. "Don't mind me," she said but got up from the bed in response to the unspoken request – order – anyway.

She ruffled Alex's hair. "Someone left a pile of textbooks for me. I'll take a look at them. Don't stay up too late."

"No chance of that," Alex admitted. Not with how tired he currently was. He didn't bother getting up, either, but watched as Jack left.

Only when the door had closed behind her did Yassen reach out, a light touch against Alex's chin to tilt his head up to look at Yassen again. The blue eyes had softened slightly, or what passed for it in Yassen Gregorovich. Concern. Alex recognised that look.

"You are well?"

"Better," Alex said quietly. "Everything's healing right so far. They think part of the tiredness is a delayed stress reaction. A few months of relative quiet should help."

Eight months of training. Ten months of high-level field work, three and a half of those as Yassen's second in command. Six weeks as a combined student and hostage under Dr Three's direct command. Only now, with their plans mostly in order and with the need for that constant deception over, did Alex realise just how heavy it had all weighed down on him. How much of a strain it had been to always be aware of every word he spoke, every impression he gave, anyone who might see through the act – his own plans first, and later the deal with Yassen. The knowledge that a single misstep could have seen him tortured and killed; him and Yassen both.

Yassen could easily have found out himself, he had access to Alex's medical records, but Alex suspected he needed to hear it in person.

"It would not be an unreasonable assumption."

That was probably the closest Yassen would get to admitting how much he had asked for when he had offered Alex that deal. The months before that had been Alex's own choice. Agreeing to Yassen's plans … it had been the best option Alex had, but they had both known it would be hard on him. Now that they had actually pulled it off, the hard work would continue. Just a different sort of hard work and hopefully less of a strain as well. Alex would still get blood on his hands but maybe he would have more choice about the targets now. Make it worth everything that had happened.

Sharp eyes drifted to Alex's chest. "Shirt."

Alex undid the buttons without argument. With chest injuries and all, the more formal sort of shirt turned out to be easier to get on in the mornings than t-shirts were. Alex would take what he could get.

It was the first time Yassen had actually seen Alex's injuries in person and not in whatever photos the medical file had included. The bruises were still vivid but had started to turn yellow. The gunshot was – not pretty. It would scar, no way around it, but everyone had done their best to minimise it and it had healed well so far. All things considered, it could have been much worse.

Alex wondered what Yassen saw when he looked at it. He had fifteen years of experience and training on Alex. He would be able to get far more from a superficial glance than Alex ever could.

"You were fortunate," Yassen finally said.

"I know." The words were familiar. Everyone had told him more or less the same. Staring in the mirror reminded him just how true that was.

Alex buttoned the shirt again, getting used to what movements he could and couldn't pull off just yet. Yassen probably noticed and had it added to whatever mental file he kept on Alex.

"I trust Starbright has kept an eye on you."

"Jack, Dr Javadi … I have a lot of babysitters, apparently." Which was kind of nice. He was tired, sore, and worn out. If he couldn't have Yassen around, it was nice to have someone else who actually cared.

The silence stretched on. It was a familiar approach, Yassen's way to get him to talk just to fill the silence, but that didn't mean it wasn't effective on him. Dr Three was still trying to train him out of it. Some days he managed a lot better than others.

"It's … odd," Alex admitted when it became too much. "Having Jack back. I never wanted her involved in this."

Yassen settled down on the bed. "She was caught up in political games far beyond you. It was no more your fault than your conscription by MI6 was."

"She keeps telling me that, too."

Yassen's expression was considering. "And do you believe it?"

Did he? Good question.

"I … yes," Alex eventually settled on. Two days before, the answer would have been different. Jack's rant had hit something, though. It meant something, coming from her. She'd had to deal with the worst of the consequences of Alex's decisions and she still didn't hold it against him. That mattered. "I was the one who chose to join SCORPIA but I never asked for Blunt's attention in the first place."

It would take a lot longer before he really believed it, but it was a start. Better than the lingering guilt that had never entirely gone away.

Yassen looked satisfied. It had been the right answer, then.

"I don't like this," Alex admitted when the silence stretched on again. "Jack having classes here. I know it was part of her agreement with the doctor and that the students will leave her alone, but ..."

"She has the doctor's patronage. She will be significantly safer than you were."

Alex's lips twisted in dark amusement. "I'd prefer it if she hadn't caught his attention at all. I know she won't _disappear_ if she doesn't live up to the usual requirements, but that doesn't change the fact that she'll have classes with a bunch of would-be assassins."

"You enjoyed your time here."

"I was also one of those would-be assassins myself, and you'd already trained me to your own standards in Russia." Alex took a deep breath. "I know she'll be treated more like a guest than a student, I just …"

… _Worry,_ he didn't say although he was sure Yassen got it just fine. Alex worried. It wasn't like it was a secret. He worried about Yassen, about Sagitta, about the people he cared about. About Jack, who would be just as tangled up with SCORPIA now as he was; maybe not a killer but still a known associate once things became more common knowledge. About Tom, who could easily become a target as well.

Jack wouldn't be under the same pressure as the other students, wouldn't face the same price of failure, but odds were that she would see one of her classmates just vanish one day and never return. None of Alex's class had failed while he had been there, but things had also been a bit unusual since the school was still getting back to normal after the move from Venice. Malagosto's students considered that price of failure just part of the terms. Jack … Alex had warned her about those facts of life at the school already but he would probably go over them again.

At least she was sensible enough not to get close to any of the students. She knew what they were and what they were training for. She knew better than that.

"And SCORPIA?" Alex asked and didn't even try to keep the subject change subtle.

Yassen allowed it. Alex didn't need to elaborate, either. Yassen knew or could guess what he meant.

"We will need to ensure things remain stable now. There are some businesses that will need a harsher hand than others. There are operatives with the experience to see to that."

Alex wasn't surprised. Nile had done that sort of thing for Brendan Chase. Crux had built up a very profitable drug business for SCORPIA in the wake of Damian Cray. He wouldn't be surprised if there were others like them.

"For now, our competitors will keep a close eye on things. An immediate attack on SCORPIA or her subsidiaries could easily backfire. If we show any weakness, we will come under attack within a short amount of time. If we move swiftly and leave no doubt that we intend to control the organisation with the same ruthlessness as the full board did in the past, we will still be attacked but it will take longer. Our enemies will be more cautious. The risks would make a swift strike undesirable. Once they do make their move, we will need to make some sufficiently strong examples to discourage further attempts."

 _Sufficiently strong examples._ Alex knew what SCORPIA considered 'examples'. He could only imagine what Yassen and Dr Three would consider 'sufficiently strong' enough to discourage any further attack on their businesses or the much smaller executive board.

If they did it right and put enough fear into their competitors, they would only need to do it once. If they didn't, and they had to do it again … it would be a bloodbath either way. And this was in the sort of situation where SCORPIA was still powerful. Alex could only imagine the sort of massacre it would have been if he had gone through with the option of going to the CIA with his intel. SCORPIA would have been weakened, possibly enough to be taken down completely by either the intelligence agencies or their competitors. Whoever had done it would have known better than to leave any risk of SCORPIA's resurrection. It would have been a lot of violence. A lot of death. It could have turned into a minor war. As it was, Alex strongly suspected that there would be a number of vacant positions among the higher echelons of SCORPIA's enemies by the end of it. He felt vaguely queasy at the thought.

"For the most part, things will continue as they always have," Yassen continued. "We have lost Mikato's connections among the Yakuza as well as most of Yu's snakehead, but they were always separate from the rest of the organisation. This school will still train some of the best assassins in the world. The mercenary companies will still operate in Africa, in Russia, in the Middle East. SCORPIA will still be willing to assist with any issue a client is willing to pay the appropriate price to see solved."

"We had a deal," Alex reminded him. "Conditions."

"We do," Yassen agreed. "But it will require patience. Stability first. Harsher changes can come once SCORPIA has regained her full strength."

 _Or everything might come crashing down,_ he didn't need to say because Alex got that just fine.

Patience. They had a deal but no time frame. No promise as to how long it would take to work with Alex's terms. If everything went well, Alex would at least have the influence to do it after Yassen retired, but he preferred to have Yassen's help. Someone with the experience that Alex himself lacked. That wasn't even getting into the fact that Alex knew there would be a very real risk that he wouldn't _care_ in nine years. At twenty-five, with a decade in SCORPIA's service one way or the other, who knew if he even cared anymore that part of their profits came from drugs and human trafficking? Would he even think twice about something like Rensburg's plan except to figure out if it would simply be too risky to accept, whatever the size of the payment?

It wasn't something Alex wanted to consider for now and he forcibly shoved the thought away.

"Your security?" The thought had nagged Alex for a while now. Yassen needed security these days as a member of the executive board and it didn't matter if he liked it or not. Yassen Gregorovich was a high-value target; far more so than Cossack the assassin had been.

"SCORPIA's own guards for now. Later, I suspect Danube could be shaped into something suitable. They have been given a chance to prove their competence."

They didn't quite strike Alex as a team that could be shaped into a regular security detail but then, security for Yassen Gregorovich would likely be anything but a boring routine assignment. Unlike most of the former members of the board, he was not the type to remain in the luxury of a manor or penthouse apartment somewhere. A security detail used to combat zones could work, and they had done well enough around Alex. Kurst had been the type who liked to get his hands dirty as well, and his security detail had been a mix of former soldiers and trained operatives. Very different from something like Yu and Duval's security set-up.

What 'chance to prove their competence' Danube had been given, Alex didn't ask. He supposed he would have to trust Yassen knew what he was doing. For now it was enough to know that Yassen had already taken security into account.

Alex yawned, tiredness creeping up on him. Yassen didn't look surprised. Just got up from the bed again.

"Rest," he said, more of an order than a suggestion. "Your body needs it."

Alex wasn't about to argue. Yassen ran a hand through Alex's hair, the touch so brief it was barely there. Then he turned and was gone, leaving Alex alone in the room again.

Something in Alex eased a little, another knot of anxiety he hadn't even known was there. He would feel better once he knew for sure that Jack would manage all right and that Yassen had a proper security detail but for now, this would have to do.

* * *

On the twelfth of February, Alex woke up to a schedule he really could have done without. Dr Three wished to see him for a _talk_ about his future with SCORPIA, and Dr Javadi had laid claim to two full hours that afternoon to check up on his recovery. There would be needles involved, he was sure. There were always needles involved.

Jack seemed pleased that they actually cared that much about his health. Jack also wasn't the one who had just been signed up for two hours of poking and prodding. Her bruises were healing just fine, after all.

And Dr Three … Alex was sure the man knew exactly what the wait would do to him. They had talked when Alex had returned from Russia; a sharp reprimand with the promise of another talk once the doctor had discussed the matter with Yassen. Alex knew the basics of the deal they had reached but he knew there would be more.

Alex didn't do waiting very well and especially not waiting for possibly bad news. Logically he knew the doctor had deliberately planned their talks with enough time between them to put him on edge. That really didn't make it any less effective.

At least every meal got a little easier. The students grew used to Jack's presence, which would help a lot once she started actual classes. Jack got used to the school in turn. She was still a curiosity but much like with Alex, everyone had a lot of other things to worry about. It wouldn't take long for her to become just one more student, albeit a bit of an unusual one.

He had put together a workout programme for Jack based on his own experiences with Professor Yermalov and the sort of workout routine that Crux favoured. That seemed like something that would work for Jack. Yassen's idea of 'acceptable physical condition' was something they could work up to if that was ever necessary.

Start slow. Hope the few days of preparation would make it a little less painful to get thrown right into Yermalov's domain. MI6 hadn't afforded him the same courtesy when they had left him in the middle of SAS selection, but Yassen had built up slowly to avoid injuries.

"Have I ever mentioned how much I hated PE?" Jack commented lightly as they headed off for breakfast.

"Teacher was a sadist?" Alex guessed. "Because Professor Yermalov is a magnitude worse."

"No, she just loved team sports. The amount of time I've spent standing around, waiting to see if I got picked last …" Jack shook her head. "And that's so reassuring. Thank you."

"I could tell you he might go easier on you since you're not really training as an operative," Alex offered. "That would be a lie, though."

"God forbid." Jack's voice was bone dry. Alex's lips twitched slightly but he didn't respond otherwise.

Once she started classes, she would join in on the morning run with the students. For now she would stick to her own pace and Alex's instructions. Alex knew she would probably struggle to keep up with the run for the first couple of weeks but a small bit of preparation would be better than nothing. She wouldn't start completely from scratch.

At least she had workout clothes already. They had been part of what she had bought that day she had spent with Crux. Alex wondered if that meant Dr Three and Yassen had already decided to enrol her at Malagosto at that point or if it had been a 'just in case' sort of thing. Convenient if necessary, no big investment if not. A glance at the stuff Jack had brought back on Crux's suggestion revealed a selection suspiciously close to what Yassen had ensured Alex had arrived with at the school. Normal clothes, sure, but also workout clothes as well as a couple of more formal outfits. Something to cover any occasion.

SCORPIA's approach to Jack seemed like it would be much the same as it had been with Alex. Keep her busy; too busy to think about anything else. Malagosto already followed the principle that idle hands were money wasted. If Alex's suspicions were right, Jack would be kept too busy to do anything but barely keep up with the curriculum. It had already started with the textbooks that they undoubtedly expected her to have finished before classes even started for her. At least Alex had been used to long days and a harsh workload in the safe-house in Russia. Jack would be dropped straight into it.

Breakfast was less tense than it could have been. With the first, careful introduction over, Jack knew most of the instructors well enough now to keep up a conversation and not be on edge all the time. And Alex had plenty of experience in shoving unwanted thoughts aside for later. Dr Three's talk still loomed but he pointedly ignored it for a little while.

Maybe his psychological profile went on about his tendency to use _suppression as a semi-successful coping mechanism_ and whatever other conclusions Dr Steiner had reached, but sometimes it came in handy.

Eventually breakfast ended. The tension and anxiety returned.

"Okay?" Jack asked him quietly once they were outside. Alex had managed to get a lot better at hiding his emotions, but Jack had all but raised him. Like Yassen, she could probably tell something was off.

"I will be." When the talk with Dr Three was over, anyway.

Jack could probably tell that, too. She squeezed his hand tightly but didn't say anything about it. "I should get going. Exercise to do."

Her utter lack of enthusiasm was enough to make Alex's lips twitch. "Just be glad it's February. Professor Yermalov still insists on outdoor workouts in August. It builds character or something."

"Oh, joy." Jack's deadpan comment drew an actual smile from Alex this time and he gave her a quick wave as he headed off towards Dr Three's building.

"Have fun!" he offered. "Remember, if you get bored, you can always do the programme twice!"

Jack probably had some choice words about that suggestion, but by then Alex was already safely out of hearing range.

* * *

Alex settled into one of the uncomfortably comfortable chairs in Dr Three's office exactly on the hour. His good mood from the brief talk with Jack had evaporated the moment he closed the door behind him.

Alex didn't speak as the man finished up something or another on his computer, the sound of typing the only thing to break the silence. Dr Three wanted Alex comfortable with silence. Comfortable with not filling up the emptiness with words. Comfortable with only his own mind for company. It was slow work with a fifteen-year-old but Alex liked to think he was doing better than he had. Well, at least when Yassen wasn't involved.

Malagosto taught some meditation techniques. Yassen had covered those in Russia. Alex hadn't been very good at those, either.

Only when the doctor had put aside the computer a good ten minutes later did Alex speak.

"Sir," he greeted and kept his voice perfectly even.

"Orion," Dr Three replied. "Or perhaps Alex Rider, as we are here to decide."

And that wasn't ominous in the _least._ Alex didn't rise to the bait, though. Dr Three would get to the point in his own time. Alex knew the doctor welcomed questions but he wasn't about to risk it, not after the reprimand he had been given.

"There is a vast difference between the desirable qualities in an operative and a second in command – and, indeed, in a member of the executive board," Dr Three began in his calm and cultured voice. "We have, perhaps, chosen the wrong approach with you. You had to become a weapon to survive Malagosto and SCORPIA's intentions, and such was the way Yassen trained you. It is a credit to his skills and patience and your own adaptability that you survived and have managed so well. A member of the board must possess the ruthlessness to survive and see SCORPIA thrive and the right understanding of politics and underhanded deals to know when a client's plans will bring more trouble than the profit is worth. He – she – must accept that with business comes losses, that operations will cost lives and will occasionally go wrong despite the best of planning, and that we cannot take everything into account. SCORPIA is a business, a successful one. With business comes risks."

Dr Three paused just long enough for Alex to nod, a quick acknowledgement that he was paying attention. He wasn't stupid enough to think his input would in any way be welcome right now.

The doctor nodded slightly, satisfied. "You became Orion to survive but you never thrived in the role. You kept up the act but you fought back in what few ways you could. Clung to inconvenient morals. Perhaps we will have better luck training Alex Rider for a place on the executive board instead."

It was unnerving sometimes how the doctor talked about Orion and Alex himself as two distinct people. Everyone else used Orion like the codename it was, no different from Cossack or Hunter or Nile. Dr Three spoke of it as a separate identity, and Alex couldn't even deny it. It was unnervingly close to how he himself thought about Orion sometimes.

"Yassen has faith in your potential. I am inclined to agree. We have time to see to any holes in your education. With the appropriate training, you could become an excellent executive of SCORPIA. Perhaps you would wish to keep the executive board, perhaps not. You would at least be in a position to make an informed choice. You have no wish for power for power's sake, nor for the wealth or infamy such a position would gain you, but there are other, far stronger factors that motivate you. You would hardly have agreed to Yassen's plan otherwise."

The doctor paused. Alex got the point immediately.

"Yes, sir." What those other motivating factors were, well, the doctor could ask if he wanted to know. Alex wasn't about to volunteer that information. Maybe Yassen had shared it already, maybe not. Alex wasn't about to make it easy.

Yassen knew his terms. Now Jack had been added to that list. The more influential Alex got, the better he would be able to protect her in the future. If he failed, SCORPIA lost any incentive to keep her alive as well. He would do what he had to, like he had told Yassen, for himself and Jack and the thousands – millions – of innocents that could have been caught up in SCORPIA's future schemes based on some client or another's whim. If he lost his influence, if he couldn't live up to Yassen and Dr Three's expectations, if he couldn't keep himself alive and SCORPIA thriving, then he might as well not even try.

Alex was in too deep to ever back out again. The only way out now was to see it through.

"Your choices are these, then. You remain Orion, Yassen's second in command. You accept that you will never have a place on the executive board, but you will be free to choose your own future in four years with the end of your contract. The odds that you will survive to see that happen are quite good and you would retire a wealthy man."

Alex already knew that wasn't an option. Dr Three undoubtedly did, too.

"Your second option is that you become Alex Rider once more. We train you to take over on the executive board upon Yassen's retirement. It is a heavy responsibility, with no one to pass unpleasant decisions unto. You will become a target for the rest of your life, far more so than you would have been otherwise. A common operative could easily fake their death and be left alone. You will always be hunted. Everyone around you could be a potential enemy, an undercover agent, or a traitor recruited by the right offer. You will be the voice of SCORPIA and ultimately responsible for every death and every drop of spilled blood. Your training will take years. You will be expected to excel in everything. Not out of fear of punishment but for the simple reason that if you do not do well, you will not survive once you must stand on your own."

It was a bleak image the doctor painted, though Alex knew plenty of people who would hear it as a very appealing recruitment speech instead. It didn't change his decision, though. He had made the choice once already. Maybe this was Dr Three's version of kindness. Give him one last chance to change his mind.

"I'll be Alex Rider, sir," Alex said firmly. The only way to make everything worth it. And maybe it wasn't the sort of life anyone would have wanted for him – his parents, or Ian, or Jack – but it was too late for that now. He would make it worth it, one way or the other.

"You do not wish to ask about the last alternative?" Dr Three inquired and sounded sincerely curious.

That was a trap if Alex had ever heard one. Any curiosity he may have had about it got pushed aside. "No, sir."

A slow nod. "A sensible choice. I'm certain you're intelligent enough to work it out yourself."

And that was a not-too-subtle hint and not a compliment, Alex knew that much. The alternative to his willing cooperation had to be force in some way or form. He was quite suddenly reminded of _Yassen's_ alternative if Alex did not wish to choose his own future.

 _I will destroy you and rebuild you to my liking._

Alex suppressed a shudder. Knew there and then that he had it right. Dr Three would have things his way, through one method or the other. Alex's cooperation was preferred but was by no means a requirement. And maybe it was just a threat, maybe Yassen wouldn't allow it to happen, but they had underestimated the doctor before.

"The recommendation for your recovery is to give you two weeks of complete rest before your training resumes," Dr Three continued and handed him a folded piece of paper. "Minor homework is fine, of course, so long as you listen to your body's requirement for rest and sleep. The boredom of inactivity can be worse than the focus required for such work. You will report after breakfast on the nineteenth. Ms Starbright will start classes on the same day. I trust you will pass her schedule on to her."

A week to prepare, then. The reference to 'minor homework' told him perfectly well that the doctor knew he planned to help Jack in whatever way he could. He had a week to get Jack started on the basics. A week for his body to hopefully get past the tiredness, though he was at least slowly getting better. Alex didn't say any of that, though. Just nodded.

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent. Dismissed, Alex."

It felt weird to hear the man address him by his proper name again, and not as a reprimand. Alex figured it was the sort of weirdness he could get used to.

* * *

Alex's prediction about his check-up that afternoon turned out to be on point. Then again, compared to time spent alone with Dr Three, however many blood-tests Javadi might want was a breeze and honestly kind of reassuring. Alex assumed he would be able to feel it if something was wrong but it was still nice to know they paid that close attention to his health, even if it was for selfish reasons.

Every test turned out fine. Alex was cleared for time on the shooting range with Jack with instructions to be sensible and listen to his body. _The Complete Works of Alex Rider's Health Care Providers_ could add another few pages to its already impressive size. Between the various doctors – medical or otherwise – Alex had seen in SCORPIA's employ, the records from Omsk, the comprehensive check-up in Moscow, and the files from MI6, it was a solid collection. It looked fairly harmless in SCORPIA's system where the individual files were named and numbered but didn't immediately let on just how big the full thing was.

The complete, annotated paper version in Dr Javadi's office was … intimidating. All the more so because Alex still knew that sooner or later, he would be expected to read the whole thing through and actually understand it.

Javadi must have noticed his glances at the stack of papers, because she didn't immediately dismiss him after she finished the last of her notes.

"I can find you some suitable medical books," she suggested. "You have a decent grounding in anatomy and combat casualty care from your classes here. It would hardly be a bad idea to build on that."

Alex almost wanted to say no but he knew better. Dr Three had already given him a couple of the more harmless medical texts in his collection to study and those hadn't been bad. He suspected Javadi's recommendations would be better, though. She focused on patching people up, not picking them apart.

"I'd appreciate that," he said instead and meant it. One less area for Dr Three to get involved with could only be a good thing. And his couple of lessons with Mace had been interesting enough.

Dr Javadi smiled slightly and let him go. Alex would not be surprised when he found a decent-sized stack of brand new medical books in his room two days later.

* * *

AmberLily34567: We won't see anything of Julia, unfortunately. Yassen has just put events into motion to deal with that minor issue, since it's one of the last, few loose ends he has left to handle. Alex doesn't need to know right now, so Yassen hasn't mentioned anything yet.

Youya: Jack will show up a lot less once she starts on classes and Alex returns to his temporary job as Dr Three's assistant. Yassen and the doctor want to keep Alex and Jack separated, and Jack's future safety is a good incentive for Alex to work hard and live up to their expectations. No more undercover missions for Alex, unfortunately, since he's a bit too valuable for that now. Some old faces will probably show up – no promises of who and when, though. And fixed now, thank you! :)

Next: Happy birthday, Alex.


	72. Sixteen

Alex woke up on the morning of his sixteenth birthday and felt – well, pretty much no different than he had the day before. The stitches had started to itch a little in that annoying sense of not-healed-but-getting-there and the bruises were improving day by day, but he was still sore and his chest still really didn't like it if he moved even slightly wrong.

Was he supposed to feel different? He didn't think so. SCORPIA considered him an adult, and if he had been back in London … well, he would have been old enough for MI6 to legally employ him, wouldn't he? For a given definition of 'legally', anyway. And assuming he had even survived that long. He had passed RTI on his fifteenth birthday. He hoped this one would be less painful, at least.

It wasn't like Malagosto celebrated birthdays, anyway. It wasn't like anyone who didn't have access to the actual personnel files knew someone's birthday. At the most, sixteen meant one step closer to officially being an adult. One step closer to no longer being underestimated because of his age. Alex wasn't sure what to think about that. Sometimes he resented being seen as a kid. For the most part he had learned to appreciate it for the additional advantage that it was.

At least Jack's list of classes had been … not as bad as it could have been. She would follow the more harmless ones – for SCORPIA's definition of the term, anyway – and avoid things like interrogation and torture. She would follow Ross' classes but would get to avoid Jet's. Since Alex had vivid memories of the very graphic descriptions of poisons and the photos that went with them, that was a big plus. Yermalov was a given. Alex hadn't considered the Countess' lessons but he wasn't surprised to see them on the list, too. They would be very useful. French for Jack's language course – no surprise, either – but unlike the additional language classes Alex had expected Jack would get instead of those classes she didn't have to follow, those times were set aside for self-study and online classes. The list of subjects was fairly long, too, and ranged from physics to electrical engineering, computer science, and maths. Not all at once, but it was clearly set up so if she passed one class, the next would be right there to continue on with. He was surprised to see the lack of actual design classes but then, those would be a more hands-on thing as well. She would probably need an actual teacher for those.

She would also get to stay in the guest quarters. Jack Starbright was not a future operative or assassin and would get to avoid the normal night-time exercises. She would follow some of the classes but at the end of the day, she was a guest, not a full-time student.

Alex had only just finished in the bathroom, hair still damp from his shower, when someone knocked on the door. It was still well before breakfast, so early Jack wouldn't be by for another half an hour at least, but Alex was still a little too sleepy to bother with guesses about his visitor and instead just opened the door.

He was greeted by the sight of Yassen with a familiar, sealed envelope in one hand. Alex spotted it immediately. He wasn't sure why he was surprised. He was Yassen's second in command and he had agreed to whatever training it would take to get him prepared to actually take over one day. A second in command was the extended will of their boss and Yassen had plenty to see to these days. It shouldn't have been a surprise that he would use Alex to handle some of it, birthday or not.

How much he would actually be able to _physically_ do was another matter. Yassen and SCORPIA had promised him whatever time it would take to heal. Right now he was useless in the field, and Yassen knew that.

If Yassen was aware of his thoughts, he didn't let it show. "Your homework," he said, not bothering with pleasantries.

Alex accepted the envelope after a moment of hesitation. "I won't be cleared for field work again until early June." Yassen _knew_ that.

There was a flicker of amusement. "You won't need to be for this. Not every assignment is an assassination. This one is a simple matter of arranging for the security for a teenage male based in London and who may at some point in the future become a target due to his association with a high-ranking SCORPIA operative."

 _Teenage male based in London -_

 _Tom._

Alex took a deep breath. Clenched the envelope tighter. Yassen's part of the agreement, then. Some of it, anyway. Of course he would turn it into a learning experience. Alex wasn't even surprised. He also wouldn't be surprised if Yassen had deliberately used one of those assignment-envelopes for it to get him used to those, too. Maybe if he saw them often enough, he wouldn't have that same, immediate sense of dread in response.

It was the sort of thing Alex could do without having to wait until he was completely healed, too. He was still tired, still sore, still slept more than usual, but this wasn't something physically demanding, and he was pretty sure that whatever solution he came up with, Yassen would look it over thoroughly as well.

They had underestimated the danger that Jack had been in. Alex wasn't going to risk the same with Tom now, and Yassen knew that, too. The moment it became known that SCORPIA was now under the command of Yassen and Dr Three and that the rest of the board had been removed by them and not outside forces, Alex would become a person of interest as well. More than he had already been.

Alex, and a number of other high-ranking SCORPIA personnel associated with Yassen or the doctor. Dwale certainly would be as Dr Three's second in command. Nile as well, if only for the fact that he had outlived the two board members he had worked for. His survival alone would mark him as interesting. Crux as Dr Three's apprentice, depending on just how much intel the various agencies had available on recent hiring decisions at Malagosto.

It was one thing to have SCORPIA's executive board cut down due to different outside forces. It was politics on an entirely different level to have two members of the board, one of them only recently promoted, take out every single other threat to their power, including several people who were generally considered pretty impossible targets. Kurst had not survived for so long for lack of trying on behalf of his enemies, Duval had effectively been a ghost to intelligence services, and Yu hadn't even been known as a member of the board until shortly before his death.

Yassen Gregorovich was widely acknowledged as one of the best assassins in the world. Even then, this was a step beyond that.

It wouldn't take long for that knowledge to get out, either, Alex knew that, and it would be from Yassen and the doctor themselves. The plan had succeeded, any threat from the executive board had been removed – well, not counting Dr Three – and now it was time to rebuild. Let things stabilise and return to normal. Most of SCORPIA's companies already continued on, utterly undisturbed. Those that didn't would need some attention and either be brought to heel or – dissolved. And with things calm again, clients would return. They would just be more careful about which ones they accepted now.

Alex wondered if those supervillain types, the bitter little men with money and grudges, would go to their competitors instead or try to do it on their own. He was sure Yassen was right, that SCORPIA's competitors would take advantage of the upheaval and try to strike against them while they looked vulnerable, and he was just as sure that Yassen and the doctor would make a brutal lesson of it. Brutal enough to discourage any other attempts.

An investment, Dr Three would call it. Alex could see it for the bloodbath it would be. It would cost them people and operatives, human lives, and no one would even blink because it was simply a way to ensure they wouldn't lose even more resources later on.

A year, maybe, and things would have settled. Without politics to divide the board, Alex suspected that SCORPIA would at least come out of it no worse than they had been before. Less flashy operations, less visible, but – better. Less attention was good. Money would still flow, but SCORPIA had always been created to work in the shadows. A dark mirror to the intelligence world. Between Yassen and Dr Three, they would return to that position once more. With things calmed down, Alex would hopefully be in a position to start influencing SCORPIA for his own goals, too.

Alex nodded. Pushed those thoughts aside for the moment to focus on the task at hand. "What are my restrictions?"

That amusement again. "Common sense."

 _Oh, thank you, that's **so** helpful._

Alex didn't say it out loud but based on Yassen's expression, he undoubtedly knew it, the smug bastard.

Another lesson disguised as a test. A year and a half ago, he would probably have said that more security was better. These days he had learned that it was always a balancing act. Jack's description of being stuck in a safe-house was bad enough. Tom would be right under the watchful eye of MI6 and while they probably hadn't bothered with even a fraction of the security the CIA had given Jack, they would still be a possible complication. Obvious security would draw attention to Tom; attention that might just make him all the more of a target. Not to mention the fact that he was Alex's own age. Alex knew exactly how he would react to having people hovering nearby all day and couldn't imagine Tom would handle it any better.

A more subtle approach, then. Like he would need to learn for future assignments, too.

"You can work on it tomorrow, however," Yassen continued. "We're leaving the school for the day."

Alex looked up, not entirely sure if he should be suspicious or not. Yassen rarely did something without ulterior motives but it did happen sometimes. Did Yassen care about birthdays? Alex had no idea of when Yassen's even was.

"Unless you prefer to spend another birthday here?" Yassen offered.

Since Alex's last birthday had been the day he passed resistance to interrogation …

"No," he answered a bit too quickly, then - "Thank you. Where are we going?"

"Out." Amusement. Today was just a day for Yassen to be amused, apparently. Alex was delighted to be of service. Really.

It took Alex less than five minutes to finish up his interrupted morning routine, not about to spend a moment longer at the school than he had to, or risk Yassen changing his mind. He did wonder just what Yassen had planned but the man clearly wasn't about to share.

They did pause outside in the hallway to wait. Jack would come along as well, then, which Alex supposed could be good or bad depending on exactly what Yassen had in mind.

Jack appeared from her room a few minutes later. She still looked a bit sleepy. Yassen had probably woken her up before he continued on to Alex's room. She spotted Alex and smiled, tiredness forgotten. "If it isn't the birthday boy himself. Happy birthday."

"Sweet sixteen or something, isn't it?" Alex asked. He remembered that from somewhere.

"In your case, how about just 'still alive'?"

Sixteen and still alive. It had come close a lot more times than he wanted to think about but – still alive. There had been a number of times with MI6 where he had never expected to live to see fifteen, much less sixteen.

Alex let out a slow breath. Maybe he didn't _feel_ any different but sixteen suddenly felt like a goal he'd had no idea he had even been working towards. Sixteen. Seventeen next year, if his luck and skills held. Eighteen, then. He would be an adult. He hadn't been able to imagine that at fourteen. First MI6, then Yassen's training and Alex's own decision to see it through even knowing the odds that he would survive were slim. Now, though, with their plan put into motion and SCORPIA under Yassen and Dr Three's control …

"'Still alive' works for me," he agreed.

The air outside was a little chilly but still pleasant to Alex. Compared to the Russian winter or the miserable humidity near the equator, most things were. The compound was still mostly quiet. The morning run was over with and the place was slowly waking up around them. All Alex could focus on, though, was a day away from it all. He would spend at least another four months at Dr Three's side. He would enjoy whatever freedom he got until then.

There were two cars waiting for them by the entrance to the school and several people in perfectly anonymous clothing that Alex would bet good money was part of Yassen's security detail until he settled for a more permanent solution.

One of them opened the doors of the second car for them but none of them spoke. Just went about their business. The cars weren't a pair of Mercedes in familiar white but perfectly anonymous black BMWs. Yassen wasn't the type to appreciate routines.

Jack almost said something. Stopped herself before she could. Alex sent her a questioning look but she just shook her head. Alex wondered if the whole set-up reminded her of how the CIA did things. He wouldn't be surprised. The dark cars certainly reminded him a little of MI6's approach to anonymity.

Alex still had no idea of Yassen's plans, but they stopped for breakfast at a fancy-looking bakery on the way. Birthday privileges apparently extended to that as well, because Yassen made a 'go on' sort of gesture and let Alex have his pick. Five minutes later and some amount of money poorer saw Alex happily chew his way through a chocolate croissant that was probably more butter than flour and with a decent-sized box of additional 'breakfast' by his side.

Yassen had picked the healthier options. Alex was sure he would probably regret that obscene amount of sugar later on but right now he was quite happy going through the haul with Jack. He didn't know what half of it was but didn't particular care, and neither did Jack. She just picked what looked like a strawberry something out of the box and settled down with her own, very healthy breakfast.

If Yassen was going to be lenient about unhealthy food for once, Alex planned to enjoy it while he could.

Their destination was a marina in Dubai and Alex spotted their reason for being there almost immediately. The _Fer de Lance_ looked perfectly at home among a number of other hideously expensive yachts; somewhat more intimidating and unwelcoming than the rest but every bit as sleek and powerful.

It wasn't until Alex saw her that he realised how much he had missed her. He had felt safe on the yacht in a way he hadn't in most other places and even her unwelcoming exterior looked somehow warm and inviting to him now.

Jack arched her eyebrows when they reached the yacht. "Bit big, isn't it?"

"That's the _Fer de Lance,_ " Alex said, since Yassen was already halfway up the gangplank. "Yassen's private yacht."

Jack shook her head. "Explains how uninviting it looks. And why someone named it after a snake."

Good point. The name fit her, though. Alex had looked up her namesake and there were some clear similarities between the two. She looked reasonably harmless if still unwelcoming in an expensive marina. At sea, there was a distinctly serpentine feel to the way she cut through the waves and wind. She suited her owner.

The water was still and the gangplank sturdy and it was a short climb to the deck itself. Alex ran a hand across the perfectly smooth, white surface of the boat, fingers lingering for a second. If she had any scars from Santa Catarina, they were long since fixed.

He had missed the yacht. Stepping on board felt a little like coming home.

Jack followed, a little more cautious. "Crime pays well, then?"

"Once you've paid off your student debt, anyway," Alex replied. He had more or less made peace with the thought. "Yassen's kind of a special case, though. He was SCORPIA's best assassin for more than a decade before he was promoted to the executive board."

He didn't have to point out just how well-paid of a position that had been. The _Fer de Lance_ made that abundantly clear, and she had even been a bonus. Sure, SCORPIA had claimed a percentage of the fee from the clients that Yassen got through them, but the majority had gone to Yassen and he had been exorbitantly well paid … and that wasn't counting the clients from his own network. Now, as a member of the executive board … if their plan succeeded, if Yassen managed to retire in relative peace and quiet, he would do so as a very wealthy man.

"Of course, there's a percentage that doesn't survive anywhere near long enough for that," Alex continued quietly. "Malagosto calculates with a certain percentage of … failed students, and then there's the percentage that gets killed during their first year. If someone survives that first year, they'll probably live long enough to complete that exclusive contract. It takes a while to get the experience needed to stay alive and not just rely on luck, and some of the new operatives get overconfident after a couple of successful assignments."

Alex had seen the calculations; cold, meticulous spreadsheets that kept close track of the students that passed through the school and the return on investment. Numbers on a screen rather than people.

Jack knew that already; he had covered it in his briefing of the school. Somehow it felt a lot more real, standing on the deck of a million-pound luxury yacht and with the knowledge that Jack would start classes at the school herself in less than a week.

Jack shook her head but didn't comment. Alex could imagine what went through her mind. Just what sort of people signed up for that – a job as an assassin with a terrorist organisation, knowing that failing a class would get them killed? Alex had wondered the same sometimes but not for long. It wasn't a comfortable thing to think about when he was one of those trained assassins himself.

Yassen's security detail stayed on solid ground, probably to make sure nothing happened while they were gone. Since the first officer had just appeared, Alex assumed they would go sailing somewhere, anyway.

The man smiled slightly in greeting. Alex remembered him from the trip to Santa Catarina. He wasn't the most social of men but leagues more laid back and pleasant than the captain was.

"Welcome back," he greeted in faintly accented English.

Alex smiled back without even thinking about it. "Thank you. Jack, this is the _Fer de Lance's_ first officer. The captain is … somewhere, I guess. Probably below decks. Geir, this is Jack. She pretty much raised me for a lot of my childhood."

"Ma'am," the man greeted.

"Nice to meet you," Jack responded automatically.

Voices from the hallway below decks interrupted them and the first officer nodded briefly before he settled down to see to the many instruments.

There was something familiar about those voices, and Alex's suspicions were confirmed when he saw Marcus appear, looking a little worse for wear and followed by the rest of his team.

Another knot of anxiety unravelled, almost ignored in the back of his mind. He had known they were all alive and reasonably fine but like with Yassen, it was different to see it in person. Well, Marcus would be out of commission for a while but then, so would Alex. For an assassination the sort of which Yassen and Sagitta had just pulled off, something like that was a minor thing.

Maybe the feeling was mutual, because Alex felt a distinct pause as Sagitta got their first look at him in person as well after everything that had happened.

"You look like shit warmed over," Marcus greeted him.

"Says the man with two broken ribs," Alex retorted. "I'm flattered but you don't have to go to those lengths to imitate me." Slight exaggeration, maybe. Marcus did look a lot better than Alex did these days but he still moved just as carefully.

Alex didn't like body armour, it was awkward and heavy and uncomfortable, but he had really learned to appreciate what it did. Sure, bruised and broken ribs sucked but they were much better than the alternatives.

Marcus' lips twitched slightly. "Well, I'm still going be back in the field two months before you."

Assuming he listened to his medics, anyway, if his instructions were anything like Alex's. Though Alex doubted that Mace and Aranda would let him get away with anything else. He wondered what the rest of the team would be doing while their commander was out of commission. Last time they'd had injuries on the team, it had been Adams and Jarek. They had been sent off for further training that wouldn't aggravate their injuries and the rest of the team had done smaller assignments for those weeks. What did they do when it was the commanding officer out of commission? Maybe command temporarily shifted to Adams and they got stuck with smaller assignments again. Alex would ask later.

He felt more than saw Jack shift slightly beside him and turned his attention back to her.

"Jack, this is commander Marcus and Sagitta, his team. They're the ones that have had my back when I've needed backup on assignments. They were on an assignment with Yassen while I was in Russia, so Yassen sent Danube instead when I ended up in hospital. They've worked with him before and I know them pretty well, too, so if I couldn't have Sagitta as security, they were the second-best option."

Enough detail to let Jack know he trusted them and it hadn't been their fault he had been alone and without backup in Russia. He allowed himself to be a little more casual than normal, too. He knew it was supposed to be 'Mr Gregorovich' and not 'Yassen' but right now it was just them and he didn't care. It seemed to work because some of the tension in her body eased.

"Guys, this is Jack. She pretty much raised me from when I was seven and my uncle started to leave on longer assignments for MI6. Well, he called it _banking_ back then," Alex added, just a little bitter still. "We obviously didn't get told the truth until he was dead and MI6 decided I could be useful. She was the only adult except for Yassen who tried to stop them, but I don't think there's anyone in England who could have stopped Blunt from getting things his way."

He hesitated for fractions of a second as he wondered how much he could tell them. Decided that the answer was 'whatever he damn well wanted to'. Sagitta had gone along with Yassen's mad plan, had helped assassinate two members of the executive board, and maybe they didn't know all the details from Russia yet, but they were in just as deep as Alex was. For that matter, he wouldn't be surprised if they learned about Tom one day as well. Alex's life had a habit of getting complicated whether he planned it or not.

"That's why Kurst targeted her," he added. "She's the only family I have left and pretty much the only person I have outside of SCORPIA."

And now Jack Starbright was about to be part of SCORPIA, too. Sagitta had to know that as well. Her continued presence was a pretty big hint.

"Ma'am," Marcus said and held out his hand. Jack accepted it with only a moment of hesitation. They were intimidating in their own right, the team, but they didn't have the same cold ruthlessness of someone like Dr Three. She had liked Hill and Danube as well. Soldiers, not assassins. "You raised a damn good kid."

Alex wanted to argue that he was sixteen now and not a kid for that much longer. Somehow he suspected that really wouldn't help his argument.

A bit more of Jack's tension eased. Marcus couldn't have known but his remark echoed Jack's own words whenever someone had complimented her on Alex. He wasn't complimenting how great of a student or killer that Alex was, not directly, anyway, and that made a world of difference.

"He was a bit of a handful sometimes but I think he turned out all right," Jack agreed, a hint of the usual warmth in her voice along with a bit of gentle teasing aimed at Alex. He hadn't been the easiest kid around, he knew that. Too much energy and curiosity both, which could make for a headache-inducing combination sometimes.

Alex let Marcus handle the rest of the introductions. He trusted Sagitta, and Jack was a grown woman. He wanted to protect her but he suspected she wanted to find her own way if she could. Especially after so long in a safe-house.

He didn't hear Yassen reappear but somehow sensed the man's presence, anyway; the odd, instinctive awareness born of months in isolation.

"I expected they would get along well enough." Yassen's words were little more than a murmur.

"Thank you," Alex said, just as quiet. For bringing Jack along. For making the effort of having Sagitta there. He needed that bit of calm and reassurance that things were all right for now. "Where are we going?"

"Nowhere. Anywhere, I suppose." Yassen's response was supremely useless. Alex didn't mind. "We will take a day to simply enjoy the sea. Does it matter where?"

Alex supposed not. The point was to get away from everything for a few hours. The rest didn't matter. The sky was clear and the sea beyond the marina was blue and for a little while, Alex had no obligations but to relax for the day.

His silence was answer enough. Yassen seemed faintly pleased with it, at least.

The captain appeared from below decks. He ignored the lot of them with practised ease but did snap an order in Arabic at one of the two deckhands.

The gangplank was retracted. The twin engines rumbled to life beneath them, a strangely soothing, familiar sound. The massive boat began its slow manoeuvring out of the marina.

And Alex's body, a knot of tension and anxiety and a dozen things he had no words for, slowly eased with every yard they moved from shore and every breath of cool, sharp sea breeze and the faint scent of diesel engines.

For at least a little while, Alex Rider was home.

* * *

It was sunset by the time the _Fer de Lance_ returned to the marina.

They had spent the day in the Persian Gulf, far from shore and well beyond the reach of anything that might target them. The weather had been pleasant, the company nice, and the boat had been stocked for both a massive lunch and early dinner. Alex hadn't expected to celebrate his birthday at all so just the fact that Yassen paid attention to it was a welcome surprise, and on top of that came the obvious effort he had put into making it a nice day for Alex.

Sagitta left for the hotel they would spend the night at before they continued on to one of SCORPIA's bases in the morning.

Yassen, Alex, and Jack returned to Malagosto, Yassen's security detail in tow. It was well into the evening by the time they arrived back at the school. Alex had slept for most of the drive. Jack ruffled his hair and told him goodnight before she vanished into her room. Alex retreated to his own room, Yassen following along. Alex understood why when he turned on the lights and got a closer look at the addition to the place.

There was a solid stack of books sitting on his bed. Alex picked up the top one. _Air Law._ Beneath that, _Aircraft General Knowledge._ Then _Principles of Flight._ The rest of the books followed along the same lines. Alex was starting to sense a theme.

He glanced up. Met Yassen's eyes.

"The theory requirements for a helicopter licence," Yassen said, and there was something in his voice Alex couldn't quite decipher. "Useful in our line of work."

There was a moment's pause, so slight that Alex almost missed it. "Equally important," Yassen continued, slightly softer, "I suspect you will enjoy it. Once you can pass the theory exams, we will find a suitable instructor for actual flight training. Something to work towards while you recover."

Alex felt a sudden lump in his throat. It wasn't just the price of what was obviously his birthday present – because he knew enough to know that even the most basic of pilot licences were _expensive_ when you didn't have the military footing the bill – but the thought behind it. Yes, it was a useful present – it was from Yassen, it wouldn't be anything but useful – but it was also something that didn't have to do with killing people. It was something that Yassen had wished for once and eventually paid for himself and now obviously felt that Alex might enjoy as well. It was something that wasn't an echo of his father, because John Rider had never been a pilot, and it was something Yassen had given careful consideration before he had decided on it. Not for SCORPIA, not for their plans, but because he felt Alex would enjoy it and it might save his life one day.

Alex remembered Yassen in the red and yellow Colibri helicopter in London so long ago, remembered the time he had spent in larger helicopters – SCORPIA's own and chartered ones, and the Graffs' luxurious private chopper – and suspected that Yassen was right.

He had never considered it but now that he did … it sounded fun. Like learning to sail the _License to Chill_ had been. Like being on board the _Fer de Lance._ That feeling of freedom and the ability to go anywhere he wanted.

Alex's hand lingered on the heavy stack of books. A lot of reading. A lot of training flights. A lot of work. Somehow he found that he didn't mind in the least.

"... Thank you," he said softly, all the things he couldn't put into words but that he knew Yassen would understand, anyway.

"You will perhaps never thrive in your future role," Yassen said quietly. "But never forget that it comes with benefits of its own. It does not have to be as bleak as you believe. Find those indulgences that make you happy. Never beyond reason but enough, perhaps, to make up for what it took to get there."

A pilot's licence and the _Fer de Lance_ for Yassen, however practical both of those were. A house in Saint Petersburg. Retirement on his own terms. For Dr Three it seemed to be free reign and funding for whatever research he desired, and maybe that thought still made Alex feel sick, but the man genuinely seemed to enjoy it.

Alex wasn't sure what it would be for him, but he supposed he had nine years to figure it out.

* * *

Youya: Alex will go by his real name for the most part. Yassen and Dr Three want SCORPIA's clients, competitors, and various associates familiar with him if he ends up in charge, and the sooner the better.

Next: For someone cleared for 'minor homework', Alex has a remarkably busy week.


	73. Crash Course

Alex woke up the day after his birthday with the looming knowledge that they had five days to prepare Jack for classes. Five days before he was back under Dr Three's command.

He almost panicked for a moment – five days was _nothing_ – before he took a deep breath and got that reaction under control.

Exercise. Shooting lessons. The textbooks she had been given. They could do that. And between lessons, Alex had his own homework in all its various forms.

"I need to figure out security for Tom," he told Jack that morning when she had finished her daily run and they had both finished breakfast. He still had the file on his table. He had skimmed it the night before but would need to read it more thoroughly and figure out just what to do.

He did notice that Tom had told his brother about the situation with MI6. That part came straight from MI6's own records and they had clearly not been happy about it. Alex was torn between worry that Tom would push Blunt too far and gleeful desire to cheer him on.

"Get him out of England," Jack said without missing a beat. "He wants to. He got a job after school to save up some money and leave as soon as he graduates. His parents may have divorced and his dad moved out, but that didn't help all that much. Jerry offered to help him get settled in Italy once he can leave. Get him out of England and he'll be much further away from Blunt."

Out of England? Alex took a slow breath. That would make it easier. MI6 had a long reach but distance made it harder for them. Arrange for a scholarship to some boarding school somewhere, maybe? Europe would probably be best, though that would mostly rule out an athletic scholarship, which was Tom's strong point. Tom's academic records were included in the file, not that Alex was surprised. While his grades had improved over the past year, probably due to Tom avoiding his parents in any way he could, they were far from brilliant. Maybe just fake an athletic scholarship, then. It should be possible. Pick a decently average school with less expensive tuition and a strong focus on sports and see what could be done. The Graff kids had attended a boarding school for security reasons. Yassen told him to arrange for security. Alex wouldn't be surprised if he would be all right with that sort of expense, then.

It was something to keep in mind. A scribbled comment at the top of his notebook made sure he wouldn't forget.

The simple solution would be to bring Tom in and become part of SCORPIA the way Jack had. Security would be much easier, then. It wasn't the solution Alex wanted, though, and Yassen knew it. Even if he hadn't said so in as many words, Yassen had given Alex the chance to find an alternative. Alex was not about to waste that. If he could give Tom even the appearance of a normal life, he would.

"What's your first textbook of the day?" he asked.

Jack looked distinctly unenthusiastic. "Physics. If I can get a head start on that in peace and quiet and maybe even understand the basics, I think that would be better."

Physics. It was a sensible plan of attack. Alex could still empathise with that distinct lack of enthusiasm.

* * *

"Ross expects everyone to be able to strip, check, clean, and reassemble any type of weapon they know how to shoot," Alex began right after noon, when the students were gone from the shooting range and they had both spent enough time on textbooks that they needed the break. "You won't need to be able to completely disassemble it, you might even do more harm than good if you try to maintain all the little pieces yourself, but if you can, that's an advantage, too."

Yassen had considered that part a requirement. Alex had lost count of the number of hours he had spent painstakingly disassembling and reassembling the full arsenal in Yassen's safe-house. The number of hours he had spent actually cleaning those weapons hadn't been that much less, either. He couldn't do anything that detailed blindfolded, but he could certainly strip and reassemble any one of his guns with his eyes closed if he had to.

"He won't expect you to know all of it in advance. Some do, some don't, and we won't have time for anything big. If you can manage just one, that's a good start."

Alex took a deep breath. Put a gun down on the table in front of them. All of a sudden, it felt uncomfortably real. Based on Jack's grim expression, she agreed.

"This is a Glock 17, one of the most widely produced semi-automatic pistols in the world. It's produced in Austria and entered service in 1982 -"

* * *

There were a lot of boarding schools in Europe once Alex started digging. He didn't want to pick anything further from England than that. If Jack had still been in the States, that could have been an option, but not now. That was too close to the CIA for Alex's comfort.

It would be a balancing act between distance from Tom to MI6 but not enough to make it so blatantly obvious to anyone looking that someone had a hand in things that it would make Tom all the more of a target.

Some schools were so high-profile that Alex could dismiss them immediately. Some were so small they would be useless for his purpose. He needed a reasonably average boarding school, something with a perfectly sound reputation but not something exclusive enough to draw the wealthiest of students – and the tuition that came with that. He wanted Tom to fit in as well. Something that would be isolated enough to make security easier but not enough so that it became suspicious. Something with actual scholarships and a sports programme with a good reputation. And discreet. That had a lot to say as well.

Tom was the type to roll with things. He had learned that from Jerry. Alex was sure that Jerry could be convinced to go along with the 'I applied for a scholarship on my little brother's behalf and paid the rest out of my own pocket' excuse. With a decently normal boarding school, Alex was pretty sure that the right kind of 'donation' would handle any issues with Tom's academic records.

MI6 would know it was a lie, of course, but Tom wasn't all that important to them as anything other than someone Alex might contact. Nowhere near as important as the CIA had considered Jack, and certainly not important enough to do something to keep him in London, not even if they had proof that Alex had been the one to arrange for a place at a boarding school. Tom was a tiny chess piece in a very large game. With the methods Kurst's second in command had used to kidnap Jack, Blunt had to assume the same was a risk if they locked Tom away somewhere.

If SCORPIA wanted to get to Tom Harris, they would. One way or the other. Would Blunt risk the lives of a number of skilled, trained, useful agents to stop that? The same man who hadn't bothered with even the most basic of security and backup for Alex himself? He doubted it. Tom's security – what was there of it, anyway – was there in case Alex contacted him. Only Jack's interference meant that MI6 had bothered to even mention why Tom's security had increased after Alex's promotion.

Tom, like Alex, was expendable. Alex would just have to take advantage of that now.

He needed the school to have English as its primary language, too. Tom's grades in languages were no better than in most of his other classes, and while that sort of thing could be learned through exposure and necessity, there was no need to make it any harder than it had to be. And then came the issue of security. Somewhere in the middle of crowded city would be a security nightmare. It had to be somewhere more isolated.

That, in turn, brought up some very unwanted memories of Dr Grief's little operation at Point Blanc, and Alex shuddered.

Maybe not quite that isolated.

Preferably somewhere that made it possible for one security team to handle it but without being a complete prison.

It would be expensive even then and Alex knew it. The tuition was the least of it. A round-the-clock security team – out of sight, but still – was by no means cheap. Alex wouldn't be surprised if that would end up costing ten times what the actual tuition did. Yassen had to know that, too. He would need to approve whatever Alex came up with, of course, but he had to know that there would be no easy, inexpensive solution when it came to security issues. The fact that he had agreed to Tom's security as part of their deal had to mean he had taken that into account, too.

Between Jack's training and Tom's security, SCORPIA – or rather Yassen and Dr Three – was sinking a lot of money into keeping Alex happy. Alex wasn't naïve enough to believe they didn't want something in return. He had a deal with Yassen. If Alex didn't do well enough on his part, Tom and Jack's security would be excellent leverage. SCORPIA would never go through that much trouble for the sake of one normal operative, not even the second in command of a member of the executive board. For Yassen's potential successor, though, for someone who would be trained to take control when Yassen retired, someone with enough attachment and loyalty not to turn on Yassen or Dr Three at the first chance he got and equally important, to defend them if anyone targeted them … that would be worth the half a million pounds or more that SCORPIA would normally have charged Jack for her time at the school, along with however much Tom's security would end up costing.

In the end he decided on a boarding school a bit north of Zurich. Saint Verena International School had a strong focus on sports, enough students to hide Tom in the crowd but not enough to be impossible to keep an eye on, and tuition that was steep by British standards but very reasonable by Swiss ones.

Alex was tempted for a second to find an all-boys school somewhere, because Tom was sure to love _that_ , but that was a little too cruel of a trick to play. It was bad enough that all of the boarding schools that Alex looked at had what could best be described as a 'generous' teacher to student ratio. There would be no hiding in class for Tom.

Maybe Tom would thank him later. Eventually. Once all the cursing was done.

If MI6 decided to follow along to keep an eye on Tom … well, at least it would be a lot more expensive than keeping him under surveillance in London had been. Alex was petty enough to consider that a plus and he knew Tom would appreciate it, too.

The groundwork done, Alex settled down to write the full report for Yassen.

* * *

Alex's weeks as assistant instructor to Gordon Ross were very different from the few hours he had spent showing Hanna Graff the basics of shooting. SCORPIA's students were professionals and almost all of them used to a variety of weapons. Hanna had started from scratch, hadn't been comfortable at all with guns, and she hadn't needed to know the details of weapons training. Alex had only had time to start her on the most basic of things and in her case, that was to hit a nearby target with reasonable accuracy. Anything else could come in later lessons, assuming she got any. In some ways, that made Jack's lessons easier. Alex followed an extremely simplified version of the beginner's lessons he had been given and supplemented that with his experience with Ross' students.

"SCORPIA favours instinctive firing," Alex began. "Done right, it's fast and accurate. It also doesn't leave you time to consider the target. It's just an obstacle to be removed. This lines up perfectly with SCORPIA's approach to most things. Any target is an obstacle between you and a successful assignment. It doesn't matter who or what that target is."

"Of course," Jack said, only slightly sarcastic. "And if it isn't done right?"

Alex grimaced. "You kind of just … shoot your gun in the general direction of the target and hope something hits. Not everyone can learn. If not, you're a lot better off learning to aim the normal way. You can learn to hit just as accurately both ways. Instinctive firing learned right just lets you do it faster. It's good for short range but really not for long range."

It hadn't taken Yassen long to figure out Alex had the aptitude for it. It suited his lack of patience and the teenage restlessness, though Alex hated the very idea of it. Of course, instinctive firing didn't work well with a sniper rifle in the _least,_ but Yassen was a practical man. Alex had been taught both ways to shoot whether he wanted to learn or not. Yassen had learned both methods. So, in turn, would Alex.

SCORPIA, predictably, had been delighted.

Jack started mostly from scratch, save for those brief lessons fifteen years ago. She didn't have any bad habits she had to unlearn first but she also didn't have the years of experience that most of the other students did.

Like Alex, she did not appreciate the idea behind instinctive firing. Unlike Alex, she didn't have the aptitude for it, either. Maybe she could have learned, maybe it was a mental block more than anything, but Alex wasn't going to push it. Yassen's training in that regard had not been kind, and Jack would never be a field operative. She wouldn't need to know that sort of thing.

By the end of the first lesson, she had the basics of aim and shoot down pretty well. A couple more afternoons of it and at least she wouldn't be completely lost in Ross' lessons. She wasn't a natural with a gun; she couldn't shoot anywhere near as fast and accurate as Ross expected of his students, but her life also wouldn't depend on it.

Alex started her on the plain targets. He switched to the human-shaped ones for their second lesson. Not the normal sort of vaguely human-shaped ones, but Ross' favourite ones with actual human figures on them. Alex didn't know where he got them from and he certainly wasn't about to ask where the life-size photos on them came from, either. Hopefully from some stock photo service somewhere, but Alex wouldn't bet on it.

Jack's attention lingered on the paper cut-out when she spotted the change. Her expression hardened.

Alex suspected he knew what she was thinking. He'd had the same thoughts when Yassen had done the same during his training. "Ross prefers the more realistic ones. He'll use the normal ones, too, but it'll only be a matter of time before he brings out those ones there. It's better if you've seen them in advance."

That this was how Alex himself had been trained at fourteen did not need to be said. Jack's expression told Alex she got that just fine. Malagosto hadn't been that much of a shock for Alex. There were a lot more people, sure, and he was entirely on his own, but the fact that it was a school for assassins came pretty far down the list of issues since he had spent five months under Yassen Gregorovich's tutelage by then. For Jack, it was one of those things she got reminded of from the smallest, most random of things, and Alex wasn't sure if it was better she got used to it or if he wanted her to keep that innocence a little longer. Mostly he leaned towards the former. She couldn't afford any illusions about the world she was about to be dropped into.

For a moment he expected Jack to object. He certainly had the first time Yassen had brought out one of those targets. Then she shook her head.

"I wish I could say I'm surprised."

"Yeah." The word was little more than an exhale. Alex hesitated. Watched the targets and remembered how he had felt that first time he had been faced with them. "I – it gets easier with repeated exposure," he admitted quietly. "They … stop looking human eventually. If you don't think about it."

Jack was silent for a long time.

"Alex …" She made his name sound like a sigh, a little tired but mostly resigned.

Alex shrugged, a little uncomfortable with things he had never really had to put words to before. "Most of Malagosto's students are already trained for this kind of thing to some degree. A lot of them have military background or they've worked freelance or for some crime syndicate or another. I was fourteen. Yassen knew that if I couldn't live up to SCORPIA's expectations, I would be killed. He had to teach me somehow. That method was – kinder than some of the alternatives. It took longer but he didn't mind. The executive board put me under Kurst's jurisdiction while I was at the school, and he already hated me because of my father. Yassen knew that if I showed any weakness, Kurst would take the chance to get rid of me. If I could live up to Yassen's standards, I would be safe. I would be too valuable to target out of spite, even by a member of the board."

There was really no way he could phrase it that wouldn't sound bad. The way Jack's lips were pressed into a thin line confirmed that. Yassen might have offered him a choice and stolen him away from MI6, but he had also brought him into a world where Alex hadn't had any choice but to live up to the expectations or pay the price. There had always been the option to leave, to flee and somehow make it on his own, but Alex knew it had only ever been a theoretical thing. Bad as they had been, the odds of survival had still been better with SCORPIA.

" _Valuable_." The word, spoken by Jack, sounded a lot worse than it had from Alex himself.

"Nobody pays attention to kids," Alex said softly. "That's why Blunt went through all that trouble to blackmail me. It won't be that much longer until people stop underestimating me because of my age, and I won't get that sort of assignments anymore, anyway, now that Yassen and Dr Three will take over my training again, but SCORPIA knew exactly how valuable a child assassin was. They have a small number of other kids employed but they're trained in disguises and undercover work and mostly used as covers for adult operatives because a family looks harmless. A trained assassin my age is rare. There are some, but none with SCORPIA. Even Kurst couldn't argue against that. He hated me, but a fourteen-year-old capable of surviving Yassen's training, someone raised as a spy, someone obedient and completely broken to SCORPIA's will – if Kurst had voted against me solely out of spite, he might very well have been removed permanently from the board for being emotionally compromised. I was that valuable to them. They needed a successor for Yassen and I was their only candidate. Malagosto's students were too old."

Alex hadn't known or considered it back then, but weeks and months with Yassen and Dr Three had taught him a whole new level to SCORPIA's executive board politics. Maybe Kurst had taken any chance he could to take some measure of revenge on Alex, maybe Alex had been held to impossible standards, but he had also been protected in a way few others were. The mere fact that he had been given a second chance after Santa Catarina was a testament to that and he knew that now. Any normal adult operative would have been removed after that sort of failure. They were valuable but there were plenty others like them.

Jack didn't seem to find that particularly reassuring. Alex couldn't really blame her.

Instead she just shook her head again and set to her task with grim determination.

* * *

They studied together in the afternoons as well. Jack with her textbooks, Alex with his.

Most of Jack's were familiar from Alex's own time at the school, and the ones that weren't were clearly what the instructors considered beginner's knowledge that most students would already have picked up elsewhere … along with a number of books for her self study courses. Jack's room had a lot of books lying about.

Alex's were a mix of his Arabic homework and the flight theory lessons from Yassen, the latter an indulgence before the real homework started again.

Jack had less than a week to get a decent head start on her lessons, and they planned to make the most of it. Jack didn't have to live up to the same requirements as the rest of the students but that didn't mean there was no incentive to do well. Contact with her parents and being able to spend time with Alex had been part of the deal. If Jack turned out to simply be too busy to do that … well, that was hardly Dr Three or Yassen's fault. Her schedule could easily be expanded to include more classes or participation in training exercises, just like Alex could be sent on a two-month assignment somewhere to make a point.

No one had said as much out loud, but the implicit warning was still there. Jack was going to do her best to keep up with classes, and that meant a lot of studying. Some classes had a lot more reading than others, too. Gordon Ross' was one of those.

"He likes his history lessons, doesn't he?"

Alex glanced at the mammoth book that covered the history of firearms. Yassen had made him read it during those months in Russia. Alex had been grateful for that during his assessment and time at Malagosto, because he was pretty sure Ross knew that entire brick-sized bit of light reading by heart. He certainly expected that of his students. Alex had forgotten most of it again the moment he had graduated. "Don't get him started on knives. He loves those things. According to him, gadgets are fascinating little toys, and bombs are just plain practical and basic knowledge for any future assassin, but he can talk for hours about knives and his favourite firearms."

"Of course he can," Jack sighed. "Just where does SCORPIA dig up these types?"

"Prison in this case," Alex said helpfully. "Well, Ross used to work for MI6 for a short while before SCORPIA hired him, but he spent a good while in prison before that."

Jack muttered something that might have been _of course he did_ and returned to her reading.

Alex figured it was probably better to just not ask.

* * *

Alex's health improved over the week, slow but steady. The tiredness eased. It still lingered but it got better, bit by bit. The lighter of the bruises faded completely and the heavier ones slowly followed suit. His ribs were still a mess but he had learned to be careful.

His check-up with Dr Javadi showed the same. He followed his instructions to the letter and every test she ran came back to her satisfaction.

"You are doing well enough now that I think a weekly check should be enough," she told him. "If you keep improving like this, we will make it every other week instead. Follow your instructions and don't do anything rash. You will reach a stage where you feel significantly better. This does not mean your body will agree. If you keep this up, you will be able to start slowly on your training again in a month or so but only with prior approval."

Those instructions were familiar from his bruised ribs after Miami, though somewhat stricter and a lot more detailed. Alex had a full, printed list from her. He'd been halfway tempted to add "Thou shall" in front of every item on that list.

What with Javadi, Yassen, and Jack all keeping a close eye on him, he was pretty sure that any attempt to be stupid about it would result in something that would make divine retribution look positively kind in comparison.

In the end Alex settled for the safe response.

"Yes, ma'am."

That seemed to be the response she wanted, too. She let him go without any more blood tests, at least.

* * *

Alex got Yassen's verdict on his report on Tom's security the day before he would be back under Dr Three's command. Alex had done his best to cover everything. Malagosto had taught him the basics of that sort of thing, and his months as Yassen's second in command – before and after his official promotion both – had built further on that foundation.

Alex had tried to take everything into account, or as much as he could without having been to the school in question. He had tried to cover every question and possibility. He still had no idea if he had done a good enough job. He didn't want to know what the punishment would be if Yassen decided he hadn't completed that report to the appropriate standards. For one, Yassen would probably choose the easy solution and simply kidnap Tom. And then Alex would get to pay for slacking off.

Yassen calmly put the folder on Alex's desk. His expression gave nothing away. Alex didn't even dare breathe.

"Acceptable," Yassen finally said. "You did well with what information you had available. It's a rather generous plan, too. He will have an excellent education."

 _Whether he wants to or not_. Tom's academic records spoke volumes.

Tension gave way to relief. Good enough, then, even by Yassen's exacting standards.

Alex shrugged. He didn't even try to talk his way around it. "He wants to get away from his parents. Good grades from a respected school will go a long way to help with that. It's easier with security in a place like that and it's well away from Blunt and the CIA both, which is what SCORPIA cares about. I just took the chance to help him out while I was at it. It's only for a couple of years. After that, I'll have to figure out something else. I could have picked something like Le Rosey, but that would be kind of conspicuous and I do want him to have a chance to fit in."

Yassen's lips twitched slightly. "A bit, perhaps."

It would still draw MI6's attention and Alex knew they wouldn't believe the scholarship excuse or that Jerry had the money to pay for that sort of place, but he didn't really care. It just had to look legitimate enough from the outside to keep Tom safe. Alex himself was too heavily involved with SCORPIA to ever have a normal life again, and Jack was about to get tangled up in it as well, but maybe Tom could have a sort of normal life and do normal things like worry about school and grades and girlfriends … if Alex did his job right, anyway.

With Tom's home life as it was … Alex didn't doubt he would accept a place at a boarding school several countries away. Immediately and with no questions asked. Jack said it had improved a little since his dad had moved out but it still wasn't impressive. It was still bad enough that Tom planned to move out the moment he could, and the further away from England, the better.

Alex got the distinct impression that Yassen was somehow pleased that he had taken the chance to use SCORPIA's resources to help out Tom. To do something a little selfish while still fulfilling the objective to the letter.

Maybe it was a lesson. Maybe it was a reminder that power within SCORPIA came with privileges and he would be a fool not to make full use of that. Maybe Yassen was just satisfied that Alex seemed willing to adapt to SCORPIA's approach to things.

Whatever the reason, Alex didn't care as long as it got Tom away from MI6 and his arguing parents.

* * *

Alex didn't sleep much the night before the nineteenth. He wondered if Jack slept any better.

Judging by the faint bags under her eyes that morning as she got dressed in workout clothes to join the current crop of students on the morning run, the answer was no.

* * *

Youya: That would be spoiler territory, but I will definitely keep it in mind. And fixed, thank you!

Next: Sometimes Alex really wishes he had a cheat sheet for all those important lessons he's supposed to learn.


	74. First Lesson

Alex hadn't quite been aware of it, but he had developed a routine during his weeks with Dr Three in January and he slipped easily back into that same routine now. He reported right after breakfast, a couple of textbooks under his arm, and with no idea of his schedule for the day. In a weird way, it was kind of reassuringly familiar.

"Sit." Dr Three glanced at him briefly. Then his attention returned to whatever file he was reading.

Alex sat. Quietly. He wondered if he should start on one of the textbooks – would it be considered rude or just valuable use of his time? - but decided against it.

Eventually Dr Three scribbled a quick signature at the bottom of the last page and put the folder aside.

"I expect you will be pleased to know that the issue of Zeljan's second in command has been resolved."

Dead, then. A part of Alex felt vindictively pleased about that. Kurst had been the one to hit Jack, sure, but his second in command had been behind the kidnapping in the first place.

"Thank you, sir."

The doctor hadn't had any obligation to mention it. Alex appreciated that he did.

The man nodded slightly. "You have done quite well with Ms Starbright the past week. She will be rather behind her classmates, there was little chance she would not be, but she will not start from scratch. She has proven motivated to learn so far and you have turned out to be a surprisingly decent teacher, even when the student is not already a trained professional."

Dr Three probably knew about Hanna Graff's brief lesson, too. Alex wouldn't be surprised, at least.

Before he could say something, the doctor continued.

"For now, you are too injured for field work, but it won't be long until you are cleared for less physically demanding activities. Once you are, your first assignment will be to arrange for a meeting with the CIA. I would recommend Byrne as the contact person. SCORPIA has been on acceptable terms with the CIA before. It would be profitable to have the relationship remain that way. Byrne has a soft spot for you. Softer than a deputy director of the CIA should have. You will make a better impression than Yassen and will have a much better chance of smoothing over any lingering resentment from Zeljan's unfortunate choices as well."

 _Unfortunate choices._ Alex wasn't sure how many agents had been killed when Jack had been kidnapped, but he knew it had been a lot. Joe Byrne was probably not too pleased with SCORPIA to put it mildly, and Alex was supposed to somehow make it better? Then again, if the alternative was Yassen …

"Tell them about the – change in management?" Alex asked, a little cautious. He still wasn't sure how much Yassen and the doctor wanted out there. "And the shift in operations SCORPIA is willing to undertake for clients?"

"I trust your judgement," Dr Three said, quite calmly. "You have two weeks to write a preliminary report. You will work on it in your own time. Three possible meeting places to choose between that do not favour either party would be a good compromise, I think. It will be enough for the CIA to be willing to accept one of them. Once that is settled, we will contact them about an actual meeting. Two or three weeks to arrange for the meeting itself should be suitable. We don't want the resentment to linger. We have sent them a gesture of good intentions but it is always better to settle such issues in person."

 _A gesture of good intentions._ Alex didn't want to ask. He had the horrible suspicion that the doctor didn't mean flowers. He still couldn't stop his curiosity in time.

"Good intentions?"

He had to know what he had to work with, though he really rather suspected he didn't want to hear the answer. Dr Three's words confirmed it.

"The CIA lost eight agents to Zeljan's desire for revenge. We have sent the body of his second in command to them as a symbolic gesture and proof that Zeljan acted without the full backing of the board."

 _The body of -_

Alex cut off that train of thought before it could go any further, a familiar feeling of nausea and fear settling in his body. That could have been him, he understood with sudden, horrible clarity. If anything had gone wrong, if the executive board had thought for a second he had been a traitor -

The nausea roiled. Alex took a deep breath and tried to think of something else. Anything else.

"Yes, sir."

Dr Three looked faintly pleased. Probably at Alex's sudden paleness. "I'm glad you understand the importance of such gestures. As for your assignment today, you will write a clear, concise report on events with Zeljan in Russia, your reasoning, what could have gone wrong, as well as any other courses of action you could have taken. I will be willing to consider any point you can argue in a calm, reasonable manner. Convince me that you chose the best course of action, Alex. You did not, but I will give you the chance to argue your case."

That was … a lot better than Alex had expected, everything considered.

"Yes, sir. How long do I have?"

"Until dinner," the doctor responded. "Do make an effort to be your usual, social self as well. Make a good impression. And Alex -"

Something in the doctor's eyes sharpened slightly when Alex looked up; something cool and calculating and a little like Alex was a particularly interesting new specimen of research subject.

" _\- In Arabic, if you please,_ " the man finished, easily shifting into fluent Arabic mid-sentence.

Alex wasn't fluent in the language. Alex doubted he knew even half of the technical terms he would need for a report like that. But Dr Three had to know that, too. He had access to Alex's records and the regular updates from his instructors. Alex would spend the day with several dictionaries and fighting with grammar, and he didn't doubt that any mistake would count against him.

Alex hesitated for less than a second. Then he nodded. _"Yes, sir,_ " he responded in the same language, a little less smoothly than the doctor's words had been.

"Excellent." Just like that, the mild, retired school teacher was back, along with that cultured English voice. "Dismissed, Alex."

It would be a headache and a half to write that report. It was still better than torture lessons.

* * *

Alex only caught a glimpse of Jack during lunch; a brief glance and a tired smile across the room. She showed the same tension that Alex remembered from his own first days as she interacted with the other students, but there was nothing Alex could do to help her. He was busy being social like he was expected to be, and there was no way to get used to the school but time and exposure.

The report was as much of a headache as Alex had expected it to be, but he managed to hand it in with almost half an hour to spare. His Arabic had improved by leaps and bounds from the intensive lessons over January, but he still hadn't been immersed in the language like he had been with Russian or Spanish or French.

He felt a little like he had gone three rounds with a hurricane and lost. When he saw Jack with the rest of the students that evening, she looked much the same as he felt.

It was only after dinner, when the two of them more or less collapsed on opposite sides of the large bed in his room, that they got any chance to talk.

"You look like something the cat dragged in," Jack said.

"I got homework." Alex's response was a little plaintive and very tired. "Not that you look any better."

"I'm pretty sure none of the teachers I had in college were ever that … intense. Or handed out that much homework."

"Outside of your language course, they won't even check it most of the time, but they'll know if you didn't do it well enough." Alex grimaced. "With enough homework and 'extra reading' and whatever else they call it, even the students here get tempted to cut corners. Keep a schedule like that for a month, and you get really good at spotting the occasional bit of extra work that really shouldn't matter all that much when it comes to being able to pass the class with a good enough evaluation, except it still does. The students that don't last long enough to graduate – mostly it's because they failed resistance to interrogation, but the rest tends to be because they fall behind. SCORPIA is really good at making sure the students have the potential needed to keep up. Everyone here wants to learn, but add in endless school days and very little free time, and sometimes that focus needed to keep up will slip. Just a small assignment here and there to begin with, maybe half an hour saved to use on something else. And then it adds up."

Yassen had held Alex to a merciless work schedule in Russia. Alex had figured it was Yassen being Yassen, because the man held himself to the same standards. Once Alex had arrived at the school, he had been grateful for it. The pace had been punishing, especially for a fourteen-year-old, but he had been able to keep up. He had been sleep deprived more often than not, but he had done it.

Jack's grimace was a perfect mirror of Alex's. "I'd say I was surprised but if this pace keeps up, I would probably have tried the same. At least I have some time to study on my own."

And no requirements as to how well she had to do. That made a world of difference, too, though neither of them said that out loud. Like Alex, Jack would do her damn best because she wasn't about to give Yassen or Dr Three a reason to reconsider the deal. Still, it was a safety net that the normal students didn't have.

"It's not all bad. I liked the greenhouse," Alex admitted. "I mean, not the lessons, poison and all got really graphic sometimes, but the greenhouse is beautiful. We can go take a look together one of these days. You really want a guide in there. And don't touch anything. Everything in there is … useful."

Lethal, painful, mind-altering, or just plain interesting in other ways. Sometimes all of the above. Alex had a healthy respect for Jet's domain.

"Charming. Does anyone ever end up poisoned?"

"… Not on purpose," Alex offered. Well, usually, but it had been years since the last suspicious death of a student according to Yassen, and it really wasn't the sort of thing she needed to know yet. "And Jet and Dr Javadi can both treat most of it if it's caught in time. The really dangerous stuff usually has to be ingested."

 _Most. Usually._ Somehow the words didn't sound as reassuring as he had hoped. Jack's expression told him she agreed.

"Charming," she repeated.

There wasn't really much Alex could say to that. He wisely changed the subject instead. "How are the students?"

He had looked over their files himself but there could be a world of difference between what those said and what Jack's experience was. If she wasn't safe for whatever reason …

"… Polite," Jack finally said after a long pause. "Very … friendly. Some of them aren't really social but most are … nice."

The words sounded familiar to Alex's own experiences. But then, they were in a very similar position, too. Maybe it was different for the average student who had every incentive to do well and maybe draw the attention of someone higher up in the process, but neither Alex nor Jack were normal students. Alex had arrived as Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice and been put under Nile's mentorship during his stay. Jack was there under Dr Three's direct patronage. Both of those situations meant that any student with even an ounce of political understanding – and they would need to have that to survive in SCORPIA's world – knew just how bad of an idea it would be to antagonise someone with that sort of connections. And how useful it could potentially be to cultivate a friendship with someone like that.

Alex hadn't been around any of his classmates since he graduated but he still remembered them and knew that if they were ever a potential choice for an assignment, he might very well pick them. Just because he knew them and had seen what they could do first-hand. He would prefer someone he knew personally to someone he only knew through a file and other people's evaluations.

"Kind of weird?" Alex asked. He remembered that from his own first days at the school as well. Assassin trainees shouldn't be friendly and helpful. They should be … well, Alex wasn't actually sure. Antisocial and brooding?

"Kind of weird," Jack agreed.

They fell silent. For a while they both just stared into empty air. Alex's mind had wandered off and didn't feel like it was in any rush to come back. Finally Jack groaned and got up from the bed again. Reluctantly.

"I have homework. _Homework._ I'm almost thirty. Don't stay up too late."

She ran an affectionate hand through his hair and left, closing the door softly behind her. At least it locked automatically. Alex really couldn't imagine getting out of bed right now. It was awfully comfortable and he was so tired he was close to seeing double.

Alex knew he should get started on the second report, the one about the CIA meeting. He needed to look into the practical side of Tom's security now that Yassen had approved the plan. He needed to keep up with his studies. At the very least, he should actually go get ready for the night. Brush his teeth at the very minimum.

Alex Rider was asleep before he could do anything about it.

* * *

Yassen was back at Malagosto the following day and spent most of that time with Dr Three. Alex got to play secretary. It was simultaneously both a lot more boring than he had expected – and a lot more eye-opening.

Between Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, SCORPIA earned a fortune on arms trade. In Somalia they had taken the practical approach and supplied weapons on one hand and security forces on the other. Drugs from Afghanistan – massive amounts of it – and in the Philippines, one of the many tendrils from Yu's snakehead had found itself under SCORPIA's control as well. Their mercenary forces - 'security companies' - generally had a very profitable time in the Middle East and Africa both, with South America as a growing market, and the amount of bribery and corruption that SCORPIA was involved with in Russia was just staggering. Human trafficking in Europe and Australia, financial crime in China, drug cartels in North and South America … by Alex's count, the only place SCORPIA didn't have business was Antarctica. Probably because penguins didn't have money.

Alex had called SCORPIA a behemoth once. Only now, at the heart of it, did he get an idea of how right he had been, and that maybe a many-headed hydra would have been a better image. Cut off one head and another two would take its place. Maybe under new leadership, maybe with a different name, but those businesses would live on, one way or another.

Alex came out of that meeting with a lot of notes to type up and a cramp in his hand from all the writing.

"You are well?" Yassen asked when they were alone again.

Alex could guess why he asked. The reflection in the mirror that morning had looked tired, and the hours of information he had just tried to keep up with probably hadn't helped.

For a moment he was tempted to tell him everything was fine, but Yassen would know it was a lie. Instead he sighed.

"Exhausted. There's – it was a harsh schedule before but now I'm tired and I'm sore and I'm already behind on things again. It hasn't even been two days. Not just my language course, but Dr Three has started to give me homework, too. I need to write up a plan for a meeting with the CIA to _smooth over the issues with Kurst_ or whatever he called it, and then arrange for it, and I'm supposed to do that in my own time as well because I have _so_ much of that these days."

Alex took a deep breath. He still felt a little winded if he really got going.

"I don't – how do I even set up a meeting like that in the first place?"

Alex felt utterly lost. He had two weeks to finish a preliminary plan of how to handle the issues and he had no idea of where to even start. Figure out possible places, arrange for transportation, handle security … it would be much like the handover of Ramos in Riyadh, but Alex didn't have the first idea of how that had been set up. "And then there's Tom's security, where I have the plan but no idea of where to start, and there's always some sort of studying I'm behind on -"

Riyadh alone … had Yassen arranged for it? Had Dr Three? Had someone else? And where did he even start about setting up Tom's security in practical terms? Find a security detail? Contact the school? He didn't know.

"You delegate." Yassen's response was calm and practical. "You will not be able to handle everything yourself. You are not expected to. You had Sagitta with you in the Congo. You trusted Danube's intel when you needed a cover for your absence. This is no different. You will not be able to handle the tasks on your own. That is the lesson. Try, and you will fail."

"He could have told me that. Dr Three," Alex said, a little petulant.

"You would hardly have learned anything from that. Panic and the fear of failure will ensure you remember the lesson. You are not expected to know everything, but you are expected to learn, to remember what you have been taught, and to put it to practical use."

It made sense. That didn't mean Alex had to like it, but he didn't say that. Yassen undoubtedly already knew.

"Who arranged for the meeting in Riyadh?" he asked instead. "The one with the FBI?"

Yassen looked faintly amused. "I did, with the assistance of one of SCORPIA's local operatives. It is easier with local knowledge."

"… Would it be cheating to ask for their name?"

"You have decided on a location, then?"

"The doctor wants three alternatives. I figure everyone was pretty okay with Riyadh last time, so that's one. Somewhere in Russia for the second option, I think, and the third … I don't know," Alex admitted. "I'll figure something out."

Somewhere nice and warm, preferably. And not too humid. Maybe he could make a convincing argument for South Africa. Or Hawaii, if it wasn't for the fact that it was CIA territory.

Yassen nodded slowly. Seemed to consider the request for a moment. On one hand, it would be a very Yassen thing to decide that Alex should find that information himself. On the other, Alex figured his reasoning for choosing Riyadh was pretty solid. Maybe that would make Yassen be a little more lenient.

"Aspis," Yassen finally said. "He has been SCORPIA's primary contact in Saudi Arabia for the past half a decade."

Like Crux had been in Singapore for years.

Of course, there were other issues, too. Alex hadn't voiced them out loud yet but for now they were alone, the students and Yassen's security elsewhere, and the thought had been nagging him for days.

"What if I can't do this?" he asked quietly. "I'll try, I'll do my best, but I'm _sixteen._ Some of these people I'm supposed to order around have worked for SCORPIA for a decade or more. Nile was the second in command to two of the executive board for two years before – before all of this. And now I technically outrank him. Why would they possibly listen to me?"

Yassen glanced at him. "Because no one sensible will play petty political games with the second in command of one of the board. Will there be resentment? Envy? Certainly. Will anyone act on it? Risk deliberately sabotaging an operation for revenge? They would not have survived if they were that foolish. They know that you might pay for that kind of failure, but they know just as well that there would be a thorough investigation to ensure there were no other … weaknesses in the organisation that allowed such a mistake to happen. A mistake is one thing. Deliberate sabotage is a death sentence."

And yet Alex was still alive. Because Yassen had stepped in and shielded him from those consequences when he could.

"If you live up to our expectations, you will one day be in charge of SCORPIA yourself. That is not a position to make friends in, or to care about the personal feelings of others. You will be responsible for a vast organisation and ultimately every person who makes their living through those numerous businesses. Most of it criminal activity, certainly, but in many ways SCORPIA was created to run like a legitimate company. Learn to delegate. Teach those you encounter to fear and respect you, and they will remember that lesson. Crush those who do not, prove that you earned your place and that your age is an asset and not a liability, and anyone else with those same unfortunate ideas will obey. If you show weakness, it will be your death, and SCORPIA will fall."

So succeed or die trying. Not that Alex had expected anything else. Be brutal enough to prove he deserved his position, because weakness would get him killed. He still had Yassen's reputation to shield him, but Yassen would expect him to stand on his own soon enough. Yassen and Dr Three both. He was no longer just Yassen's extended will. He was his potential successor and had to live up to that.

Alex didn't want to. He didn't want to be that sort of person, he didn't want to make the sort of examples he knew he would eventually have to, he didn't want to _earn_ the need for a security detail, but he also knew he wouldn't have a choice.

This was the decision he had made. In Russia, in the Congo, and now, once more, in Dr Three's office. Because he would need to do horrible things, have more blood on his hands than he could ever get rid of again, but he would also be in a position to do good. At least a little. To maybe prevent another Sayle or Grief or Sarov.

He would just have to make it worth it.

* * *

 _Delegate,_ Yassen had said.

It sounded horribly like trusting someone he didn't know to do a good enough job not to get him or anyone he cared about killed. But then, he had to trust that SCORPIA knew their people. That they recruited the right ones. That the undercover agents had been weeded out and that the operatives from Malagosto could at least be trusted to care enough about their own lives to do their job to the best of their ability.

Alex still had the report for Dr Three to handle, but for now he had another issue to focus on.

Alex didn't have the first idea of where to begin with Tom's security. He could have gone through SCORPIA's database of employees and found the right one. He almost did. Then he hesitated, remembered Santa Catarina, and changed his search.

 _John; Jean; Ivan._

Because Alex didn't know what name the man went by at the moment, didn't know what personality was his real one, but he had done an excellent job with security on the island with the restrictions they had been given, and Yassen had trusted him to do the job right. That was good enough for Alex. Ivan – Jean – knew his own limitations. If he couldn't do it, he could probably recommend someone who had more experience with that sort of security detail.

Jean and his team were in Iraq but nothing that couldn't be interrupted.

Alex sent him a brief mail. Attached the preliminary plan for Tom's security. Then did the only thing he could – he crossed his fingers and hoped for the best.

* * *

Jack had her first class with the Countess on Saturday. Alex had been curious about that one. It was the most harmless of the classes but it was still … something.

"I kept expecting her to give me a Look and some scathing insult because I didn't know the difference between a dessert fork and a fish fork," Jack said when Alex asked. "I didn't know fish forks _existed._ "

"The fish fork is bigger," Alex said absently. "You're not alone. She made me feel like a peasant. Ian taught me a lot about manners, but he had nothing on her. Most of the students here are in the same boat."

"Interesting class for a school of murder."

"A skilled assassin can move in any social circle," Alex quoted dutifully, parroting Yassen's lessons. "Some of the most valuable targets necessitates the ability to move among the upper echelons of society and pass for one of their own."

"Gregorovich?"

"Yeah," Alex admitted. "Just wait until she starts you on art. None of the modern stuff made sense to me. Why's that one worth millions and lauded as a cutting commentary on something or another, while the one next to it is practically worthless? Yassen can tell the difference. I still haven't figured it out."

Jack would have to, though. If her jewellery was supposed to get good enough to suit whatever situation it was designed for, she needed to know a lot more about fashion and art and design than Alex ever would. Yassen could move easily among the ultra-rich if he needed to. Alex Rider at fourteen – even at sixteen – still had time to learn. And while he still had to figure it out eventually, he wouldn't need to be able to pass for someone like that himself. He wouldn't be an assassin but on official SCORPIA business for the most part. That demanded an entirely different approach. Clients, he had found, didn't want operatives they could mistake for people in their own social circle. They wanted that edge. Some proof that they had hired killers, not social butterflies.

If some of those clients got uneasy when it turned out one of those hired killers was a teenager not even old enough to be out of school, well, that wasn't Alex's problem.

"… There'll be art galleries, won't there?" Jack asked.

"Fancy dining, too," Alex agreed. "With four or five kinds of forks, and expensive wines you're supposed to be able to recognise by name."

Which had been an interesting lesson at fourteen. Alex hadn't needed it yet and he really doubted he would anytime soon. It wasn't like he had liked wine much, anyway, and Yassen was strict about alcohol.

Jack sighed. "That explains the formal dresses. And the stupid strapless bra I had to get for them. There'll probably be oysters, too. And caviar. Or is that nouveau riche?"

Alex shrugged. "I think that depends on the place and situation. Or something. I'm lucky; no one expects a teenager to know all of this. If I mess up, it's not the end of the world."

Jack groaned. Alex decided to just let the subject drop.

* * *

 _That will be an expensive security setup,_ Jean wrote back. _Not as bad as trying to keep someone safe in London with MI6 sniffing around, but expensive. I recommend the upfront approach. It's easier to get the principal to take the threat seriously with full disclosure. Covert security but with the full cooperation of the boy will be safer for everyone involved._

That … wasn't a no. Alex could work with that.

 _But it can be done._

 _Easily. We've been responsible for civilians before and some of them a lot less cooperative than Harris is likely to be. He seems like a sensible kid. Make him understand the risks and why this is necessary, and he'll probably go along with it just fine._

That would mean seeing Tom again. It had been a year and a half since they had last had any contact. Alex was a very different person. He wondered if Tom was, too. Even just a meeting was likely to make Tom a target, but it was the sort of thing he deserved to be told in person, wasn't it? And maybe it was just an excuse to himself to have a reason to see Tom again, but in Tom's place, he would have wanted to be told in person. Not just through a brief phone call.

Of course, that meant going to London … unless Jerry could be convinced to invite his little brother to Italy on an extended weekend away from the family and tell him about the boarding school offer in person.

That could work.

 _I'll talk with him,_ Alex agreed. _Any other concerns you have, bring them to me. How long will you need?_

 _About six weeks to get everything settled, from security to his transfer. We've done this before. It can be done faster but not if you want it to look legitimate._

Alex would run the idea of a meeting past Yassen but he doubted it would be a problem so long as it wasn't in MI6 territory and Alex had proper security with him.

 _Six weeks, then._ Alex hesitated for a second. _I plan to explain this to Tom in person. I will need you and a couple of your people for security. He'll appreciate an introduction, too._

At least Alex would have appreciated that, if he had been in that situation. He suspected Tom would, too.

Jean's response was almost instant. _Arrange for a time and location; we'll handle the rest._

Just like that, Tom's security had been put in SCORPIA's hands.

 _Delegate,_ Yassen had said. Alex hoped he had made the right decision.

* * *

Naamm: Switzerland has a lot of boarding schools with excellent reputations and English as the primary language, so that's what Alex went for. If he's going to abuse SCORPIA's resources to get Tom out of England, he decided he might as well do it right.

A/N: I'm taking a break from posting for the next month. I am a winded, walrus-sized ball of cranky hormones, no patience, zero focus, and perpetual sleep deprivation, and the baby hasn't even been born yet. With some luck, I'll have time to build up a nice chapter buffer again, too. If this hasn't been updated by early March, feel free to poke me. At the rate this is going, I might legitimately have forgotten what month it is by then.

Next: Alex never thought he would miss those nice, simple assignments that had a right or wrong answer.


	75. Second Lesson

A/N 1: There is now a French translation of the fic available on Archive of Our Own, courtesy of Maelyra (Mae Kusanagi here on Ffnet)! :) The link is on my profile, as posting it here in the chapter meant that Ffnet's formatting ate half the address, even with spaces and everything added to it.

* * *

Dr Three gave Alex a week to get settled. The man never said as much, but Alex realised something had changed when he sat down the morning of the eighth day. Something felt – off. Sharper than usual. The doctor wasn't behind his desk, either, but patiently sorting through his many books; the elderly school teacher with his prized library. It should have looked harmless. Something about it made every alarm in Alex's mind go off as he settled down in one of the comfortable chairs.

Alex's sudden wariness must have been obvious because the doctor smiled. Kindly.

It did nothing to help on Alex's unease.

"You have had a week to work on your report as well as your assignment of young Tom's security. A status, if you please."

That was a suspiciously harmless request. "Tom's security has been delegated to one of our guard teams; the same one that was primarily responsible for security on Santa Catarina. I know they can work well with teenagers and they did an excellent job working within the restrictions we had been given. Tom will be transferred to a boarding school in Switzerland, somewhere average enough that he will be able to blend in easily. I'll set up a meeting and explain the issue in person and introduce him to the team as well. That will hopefully keep the process smooth."

Dr Three made a low sound of agreement. He appeared a little distracted as he picked up a heavy book on anatomy and patted it affectionately before he returned it to its shelf. It looked old. Older than a lot of the other books. "A gift from a former teacher," he said. "A remarkably detailed work on the human body. It was part of what encouraged me to pursue a career as a doctor."

The man glanced over. "You chose a sensible approach in regards to security. Your other assignment?"

"I've found three locations that could work and I'm using our local resources to work out a more detailed approach to each of them." Alex was sincerely grateful he had already managed to get that far. He really wouldn't have wanted to explain to the doctor that he hadn't even started. "Riyadh worked well for the meeting with the FBI. We're on even grounds there."

Dr Three nodded. "We have no desire to start an international incident there, and Byrne certainly doesn't, either."

"Volgograd," Alex continued, "since we're about in equally good standing with the Russians, us and the CIA."

And it was somewhere hopefully warmer than, say, Moscow or Novosibirsk in March. Not that Alex was about to point that out.

"Stalingrad," Dr Three agreed. "Once upon a time."

The man smiled, a little fond. "And I think, perhaps, you underestimate the Russian appreciation for your handling of Sarov. I would not rely on it in your place, but I do expect you stand a far better chance of being on good terms with Russian intelligence than the founding members of SCORPIA ever did. It will serve you well and open up a number of new business opportunities. Your third choice?"

Alex wasn't sure he agreed with Dr Three's conclusion but he put that aside for now.

"Johannesburg," he replied. "Neutral grounds for both parties and we've both had a presence there for years."

Alex fell silent and waited for Dr Three's verdict. For long seconds the doctor didn't speak. Then he finally nodded.

"Sensible choices. I look forward to your report."

Acceptable, then. Alex let out a slow breath and nodded. "Thank you, sir."

Dr Three nodded. He returned a few more books to the shelf. Put another few more aside. "Now, there is another matter that can't be postponed for much longer. I have deliberately waited until your health improved but it is, unfortunately, one of those issues that will become no easier to fix by waiting."

For a moment Alex was blank. He had no idea of what the doctor was talking about; tried to think back to their conversations and make sense of it, but before he could, Dr Three gave the answer himself.

" _Orion_ _._ " Hard and utterly unyielding, and a demand for instant obedience.

Alex froze. The last time he had heard that voice it had been directed at Nile and that had been terrifying enough.

He could feel the burn in his lungs again, the flood of panic and adrenaline, the tunnel vision as the world turned black around him, and he took a shuddering breath, utterly still in his chair and hands clasping the armrests in a death-grip.

He didn't dare move as Dr Three crossed the few steps that separated them; didn't dare move when the man tilted his head up with a light touch under his chin to meet his eyes. Just focused on breathing, on not hyperventilating, on not doing anything to antagonise the man – and whatever he had done, he wasn't sure, but he was _sorry_ – and finally the doctor lowered his hand again.

"And this is the response we will need to train back out of you," he said, mildly and so very reasonable. "It is a useful reaction to instil in our operatives during resistance to interrogation and an excellent fail-safe but hardly an appropriate level of control of a future executive."

Alex swallowed. Felt the immediate panic ease a little.

"The only way to do so, unfortunately, is repeated exposure to the trigger. In time, you will become desensitised."

 _Repeated exposure._ How many times did that mean? How often would the doctor trigger that response before it stopped being effective? Alex didn't want to ask. He did, anyway.

"… How long?" he managed. His voice sounded hoarse to his own ears.

"There is really no way to tell. It's rarely necessary to reverse the process and the few times I have done so, the exposure required varied quite significantly. It is hardly something that can be rushed without risking … adverse effects. Perhaps not too long in your case. You are quite adaptable. The same character traits that allowed me to instil the response in you are the same traits that will enable you to unlearn it again."

Which was … reassuring and creepy both, Alex supposed. He took another unsteady breath. Felt his racing pulse slow down again. Carefully let go of his panicked grip on the armrests. If that was the level of control the doctor could manage with his voice alone, it was no surprise that Graff's drug didn't matter all that much to him for now.

Another thought occurred to Alex. Dr Three was training Crux as his successor at Malagosto. Did that mean she might be able to do the same in time? She wasn't responsible for RTI, not yet, for now she just assisted, but in time -

"Crux?" he asked.

Dr Three seemed to know exactly what he meant and looked quite pleased with Alex's leap of logic.

"It takes skill and practice to learn to instil such a response but yes," the man agreed, "she should be able to in time, should she have such a desire."

Knowing Crux, as much of a survivor as any one of SCORPIA's elite operatives, she would never turn down that sort of advantage. Was it a warning, then? A reminder that Alex couldn't trust anyone? Or a reminder that he should never allow someone else the same level of control of the school as Dr Three had? That had been the ultimate downfall of Chase and could just as easily have been the death of a number of the other executive board members if the doctor had decided it would work in his favour.

"It could be done to anyone?" Alex wasn't sure he wanted to know that, either, but he had asked the question before he could stop himself.

"Not to everyone," Dr Three conceded, "and certainly not in the relatively brief time they remain in resistance to interrogation. All the shorter in your case, as it had to be done in the time Yassen was not present. Your age and lack of experience worked against you, as did Ian Rider's unique choice of upbringing. It has always worked to my advantage that the traits prized by SCORPIA in her operatives are to a degree the same traits that enable me to instil such a response. Someone too stubborn and independent to respond to such conditioning in a short enough time is typically someone too independent and unreliable for Malagosto as well."

Which Alex hadn't been. He wasn't sure what to feel about that but he was pretty sure it was nothing good. Whatever SCORPIA looked for – malleability or obedience or something else entirely – it wasn't exactly a fantastic compliment that they had found it in him.

Had Dr Three even cared that Alex had been fourteen when he went through resistance to interrogation? That whatever his level of training, whatever MI6 had put him through, he had still been considered a child in every country in the world?

Given that Dr Three had also taken Julius Grief apart in the name of scientific curiosity, Alex doubted it. At the most, Alex's age had meant he was still conveniently easy to twist and manipulate as needed and had made him an interesting change of pace compared to the doctor's usual, adult subjects.

Dr Three returned a few more books to the shelves. "As for your assignment for the rest of the week, I want a complete threat assessment in regards to our competitors and the various intelligence agencies. We will be targeted, they will wish to test our continued strength and resolve, but some more so than others. Not everyone will take such a risk. Use whatever information you wish but I want your own reasoning and arguments."

Translation: the doctor would be severely disappointed if Alex just repeated what the already-existing threat assessments said. And then Alex would get to pay for it.

"For now, there is no right or wrong answer," Dr Three continued. "But I will be most interested to see how accurate your analysis will be in the months to come."

That wasn't quite a threat but close enough. Alex would have an entire week to finish it, too. Dr Three expected a thorough report, then. Alex knew better than to believe he would be allowed to slack.

That was the sort of assessment that probably came natural to the doctor and Yassen both by now. Alex would just have to learn the same.

* * *

For the most part, Alex didn't have much time to consider anything but his assignments and keeping up with Dr Three's demands. There was always something he was behind on – usually his Arabic homework, as that carried the least amount of punishment if he missed it. The de-conditioning, trigger exposure, whatever the doctor wanted to call it went slower than he had expected, too. After two nights solid of nightmares after the first time Dr Three had used that trigger on him, Alex understood why. It would take time and patience. His mind had to get used to it slowly.

Alex still took the chance to check up on Sagitta when things calmed down slightly and found that he could get absolutely nothing useful. They were _unavailable_ and that was all he could tell from the files. He had a pretty high security clearance by now. It clearly wasn't high enough for everything.

Alex asked Yassen the next time he saw the man, because few others had the motive and influence to do something like that.

"Your team has been sent off on an executive protection course," Yassen told him. It sounded like he had expected the question. "Should they prove to have suitable potential, they will be sent on further courses."

For a second, Alex thought Yassen had decided on them as his permanent security team. Hadn't he already had his sight set on Danube for the job? Then Alex realised just what was going on. Security team, yes, but not for Yassen.

"I don't need babysitters," Alex objected, just a little disgruntled. He liked Sagitta, enjoyed their company, but that felt a little too much like Yassen's way to keep an eye on him.

"You hijacked a crane and dropped a boat on a conference centre. You climbed the outside of a building to satisfy your curiosity about Ian Rider."

"I was _fourteen_!" … Which, come to think about it, probably didn't help his argument.

"You are also a Rider and a notorious trouble magnet. Your argument has been noted, however." And that was what passed for sarcasm in Yassen-speak. "The last time you were sent off on your own, you were shot. You will need security soon enough. I expect you would prefer security you are at least familiar with."

He did. Alex also knew better than to push his luck … for the most part, at least.

"Marcus won't like that. He'll want to gnaw his arm off when the boredom sets in. They hate long-term security assignments."

Sure, Sagitta would do whatever SCORPIA told them to, but Alex would also prefer security who didn't hate the task. But then, what was the alternative? He was a very visible target. Someone like Duval had been a ghost. Alex's level of visibility would be more along the lines of Kurst. Kurst had used actual operatives as part of his security, but both Alex and Yassen knew how unreliable that was with Dr Three's control of Malagosto's graduates. SCORPIA had guards but Alex doubted most of them would pass Yassen's requirements. A combat team made sense, he supposed. The least undesirable of a number of bad options. And Sagitta had proven they could work with him.

Yassen's lips twitched slightly. "Your optimism about the ease of the task has been noted, too."

It took Alex a few seconds to catch on to the meaning. "I'm not _that_ big of a trouble magnet!"

So maybe he had a tendency to be a little too curious and impulsive sometimes, but at least not while he was injured … right? And he'd always had a good reason, like Jack's survival and stopping Graff's drug.

Yassen arched an eyebrow, all the commentary he needed.

"… I've gotten better," Alex tried. The argument sounded a little weak even to his own ears.

"I would have hated to see the trouble you would have found had the opposite been the case."

Alex couldn't really think of something to say to that. He changed the topic instead. " _You_ haven't picked a permanent security detail yet."

Yassen had said he had given Danube the chance to prove their competence, whatever that meant, but the people he had shown up with that morning had all been unfamiliar to Alex.

Yassen didn't rise to the bait. "A work in progress. It is worth the delay to ensure the proper suitability for the job on a long-term basis. Until then, a temporary security detail will work well enough."

Alex still wondered exactly what Yassen meant by that explanation but decided not to ask. Yassen took his own security seriously as well, which was really all Alex needed to know. He was curious but he would find out soon enough, and he had a lot of other things to worry about.

Yassen glanced at him and changed the topic again. "You have lived up to expectations so far. You recover faster than could be expected, and the good doctor is pleased with your progress. You have done well, Alex."

Something in Alex eased a little, the tension that never really went away around Dr Three. "Thank you."

He didn't think he was doing too bad or he would have been told, but he had a hard time judging anything past that. It was nice to know he was doing all right so far. He would prefer it if he didn't have to at all but if he had to learn those lessons, he would really rather avoid disappointing the doctor along the way. The man was intimidating enough when Alex was on his good side. He didn't want to risk whatever punishment the doctor might think of if Alex didn't live up to his expectations.

"Your physical state?"

"Sore," Alex replied honestly. Tired, a little restless, definitely getting frustrated with always having to be careful and watch his every move, but mainly sore. "It doesn't really hurt, not if I'm careful, just … sore."

When he got up in the morning, when he had been sitting still, if he moved too much, if he moved too little, if he moved wrong, or right, or -

Alex let out a slow breath. He hated being injured, and the time until he would be completely back to normal seemed like forever. He wondered if Nile had been as restless, those months at Malagosto. If he had, he had hid it a lot better than Alex managed.

Alex was off the painkillers again but the strict instructions he had been given kept him from being in pain. It spared his ribs and let his lung recover at a sensible pace. It also left him with a bit of excess energy and that would only get worse as he kept improving. It had been bad enough with his bruised ribs after Miami.

Hopefully he would feel better by the time the meeting with the CIA rolled around. He really didn't want to deal with politics on that level with a perpetually sore chest.

Yassen must have known where his thoughts had drifted or he just made a very good guess.

"You should feel significantly better in a few weeks. Your ribs should be healed by the time you're due to leave for the negotiations."

Alex paused. Did the mental calculations. It would be around six weeks by then, wouldn't it? The time he had been told it would take the broken rib to heal. Maybe Dr Three had planned it like that. Alex wouldn't be surprised. He also wasn't surprised that Yassen was aware of it, then. Did Yassen have first-hand experience himself with that kind of injury? Alex had never asked but after a decade and a half in that line of work, he would be really surprised if Yassen had never even bruised a rib. Even one of the best assassins in the world had to occasionally end up injured.

Then he just had the negotiations themselves to worry about. Lucky him. The closer he got to the meeting, the more worries popped up whenever he thought about it.

"… What if I mess it up?" Alex said and finally put words to the worries that never really left him alone. "I'm sixteen. Even if Byrne is willing to listen because I'm there on behalf of SCORPIA – what if I mess it up? I don't – I'm supposed to be diplomatic and patch up our relationship with the CIA, but we just killed a bunch of their agents and I don't have the first idea of what I can and can't say."

"You also arranged for a number of their agents to avoid capture in Dubai as part of your agreement with me," Yassen pointed out.

… Point. Maybe Alex could use that to his advantage.

"As for the rest, you learn well under pressure. Consider it a chance to learn a practical lesson in reasonably safe surroundings."

" _Safe?_ I'm supposed to get us back into the CIA's good graces. I don't exactly get the chance to do it over if I screw up."

And neither Yassen nor Dr Three were likely to be happy if he failed. They were about to gamble a lot on Alex's ability to 'learn well under pressure'.

"You underestimate your own abilities, I think," Yassen replied. If Alex's arguments bothered him at all, it didn't show. Then again, Alex was sure he had already taken into account what would happen if Alex failed. "Should we have miscalculated, SCORPIA will simply adapt."

 _Miscalculated._

Alex knew there and then that he would be mostly on his own. Yassen had helped as much as he could – would – and Alex would have to stand on his own two feet now. A test as much as a practical lesson.

Yassen had never been the type to hold Alex's hand when it came to training, Alex had always known that, but he had still been a patient mentor when Alex tried his best. Now it had rapidly become clear that the sort of help Yassen was willing to give when it came to his training as the future head of SCORPIA was a lot less than what Alex had been used to.

One day Alex would have to stand entirely on his own. Yassen clearly planned to start that lesson early.

Alex swallowed. Took a deep breath.

"… Yes, sir."

Yes, he got his orders. Yes, he understood the underlying lesson. Based on Yassen's slow nod, he got the dual meaning of the response just fine. Just as Alex knew he would.

* * *

It didn't take long for Alex to notice a pattern in his assignments. They ranged widely in topic but the underlying instruction was the same. There was no right or wrong answer, not the way there had been before. He was expected to make up his own mind and back up whatever he decided with solid arguments. Every assignment was a test of sorts and a way to teach him to stand on his own. He had free reign to use whatever information he could find but in the end, the conclusions had to be his and his alone.

Jack's classes and textbooks had right or wrong answers. If they really stretched it, they might be flexible enough to argue for different ways to accomplish an assignment where the right answer depended on the operative and circumstances.

Alex could still be wrong – the threat assessment, for one, would have a fairly obvious _pass_ or _fail_ at the end of it – but more often than not, even a wrong answer from Dr Three's point of view could be accepted if he could argue well enough for it.

Morals and ethics, Alex knew without ever being told, were not good arguments. Profit and power was. Building up SCORPIA's influence and cultivating new business contacts was. So was accepting a temporary loss if the long-term gain was worth it. Morals and ethics were only useful as far as they let him understand and predict someone else better. If those convictions could somehow be twisted to work in SCORPIA's favour, one way or the other, that was just a bonus.

Alex learned what was expected of him and he adapted to those unspoken demands. His health steadily improved, too. He would still be banned from hard exercise for a while yet, but the list of careful stuff he was allowed to do slowly grew longer.

Jack adapted to her classes. Alex adapted to life around Dr Three again. Yassen visited as often as he could but there was a lot to do to keep SCORPIA running and prove the organisation was still strong enough to weather all challenges. Instead Alex and Jack spent what little overlapping free time they had together, more often than not buried in books or assignments. Still, it was company.

One quiet evening, Alex hauled out Cheshire's disguise. Jack wanted to see it and for once they had the time.

He had grown a lot since London and was just an inch short of six feet even now, and the disguise wasn't as good as it used to be. Still, it fit him for at least a little while yet. How useful it would be in the future, though … that was up for debate. Once he was cleared for field work again, that would be as Alex Rider. Yassen and Dr Three wanted him out there in public as SCORPIA's representative. They wanted SCORPIA's clients, enemies, and associates to know him.

Jack watched as he slipped into the familiar identity. Cheshire's brunette wig and the blue contacts, the clothes from his weeks in the States that still fit decently well, and the light make-up.

The face that stared back from the mirror was startlingly familiar by now. A little different since it had been so long since the last time he had used that disguise but still startlingly familiar. Like Alex himself, Cheshire was growing up. A small, odd part of him realised that he would miss her.

"That's … really, really good," Jack finally said. She reached out and brushed a lock of the wig away from Alex's face.

"I won't be able to use it for that much longer," Alex said, "but it's been useful."

He paused and watched Cheshire in the mirror for a moment longer. She looked real, and he wasn't even that good at disguises. Not compared to some of SCORPIA's experts. "Her identity is about a year older than me to account for the height." He hesitated. "Her birthday is actually the day of my graduation assignment. I think that was Crux's idea of making it easy for me to remember."

Or maybe it was her sense of humour at play. For a given definition of the term.

Jack didn't answer. She didn't need to, when her expression said more than enough.

It had been a while since Alex had last been on a real undercover assignment. The day in Panama City with the Graff kids. The few days in Zermatt with Yassen and later in France with Shale. Everything else had been as Orion. As Alex Rider. Yu in Australia, the Congo, Kurst. With ulterior motives, of course, but he had done it in his own name.

Attention lingering in the mirror one last time, Alex knew he would never be the spy again. The assassin, sure. The second in command. The student. Eventually, in time, maybe the executive. The mirror to MI6 and the CIA and anyone else who had pulled his strings in the name of the greater good.

Alex Rider had never wanted to be a spy. He had been trained as one and never known but he hadn't wanted the job. It had taken blackmail to get him to agree. He hadn't wanted to be an assassin, either, but at least he had made that choice himself. His career as a spy … Ian Rider had chosen that for him. Alex had never been asked. Never been given the choice. The knowledge that he would never be one again still felt like he had lost a part of himself that he would never get back.

* * *

A/N 2: Updates should be around every other week for the time being. With a newborn in the house, things mostly happen on her schedule these days.

Next: With Dr Three's unique brand of helpful lessons, Alex really doesn't need enemies.


	76. Third Lesson

Weeks in the company of Dr Three had taught Alex when to be worried. He blamed it on survival instincts, or possibly Yassen's influence. In any case, it was enough to make Alex pick up on some indefinable … something when he stepped into the doctor's office that morning and closed the door behind him.

Something felt – off. Nothing looked different but every instinct in Alex's body went on high alert between one second and the next.

He was enough of an open book to Dr Three that the man spotted it immediately. Alex wasn't sure if the slight nod of approval was a good sign.

"Alex. Do sit down."

Alex put his books aside on the table and sat down cautiously in the chair across from Dr Three's desk. He felt on edge; every part of him focused on the doctor and waiting for something to happen. Maybe he should ask, and once he might have. Now he just kept his mouth shut and watched the man's every move.

"Your report on the meeting with the CIA?"

Alex handed the folder over without a word. Dr Three accepted it. Put it aside without opening it and focused on Alex again.

"Today, I think, we will simply talk."

Friendly. Calm. Reasonable. Definitely a trap.

"Sir?"

"Your report on the events on Santa Catarina," Dr Three said. "It is surprisingly good and thorough, and certainly for someone of your age. Though I suppose we can expect nothing less from Cossack's protégé."

Alex felt his blood freeze and his pulse speed up but let none of it show. Just waited for the man to get to the point.

"Yassen handled your punishment, of course, though a large part of it was merely a matter of undoing the damage that your exposure to agent Daniels caused to your training. Some operatives would have been killed for such a failure but your potential was too great to waste in such a way. Mistakes do happen and you were very young. Even Zeljan agreed with that. Eventually, at least."

Alex wondered just what had gone on behind the scenes. Decided just as quickly that he really didn't want to know.

What was he even supposed to say? Thank you? Did the man even expect a response? In lack of any safe option, Alex stayed quiet.

"I think, however," Dr Three said, quite calm and as damning as a death sentence, "that the report left out key elements of events. I would quite like to hear the full story."

 _The full story._ That Alex had let Daniels go, that he had tried to stop the drug, that Yassen had known what would happen maybe before Alex himself even did and had not only let him do it but had covered for him, too -

\- And Alex understood in that moment just what Dr Three's plan for the day was. If it had been Alex alone involved, maybe it would have been easier to just tell the man what he wanted to know. But Yassen was involved, too, and Dr Three knew that or at least heavily suspected it, and knew just as well that Alex would never turn on Yassen. It didn't matter that Yassen was a member of the board now; co-director of SCORPIA and no longer an expendable operative. It didn't matter if Dr Three somehow already knew what had happened. It didn't even matter if Yassen himself had told the doctor for some unfathomable reason already, though Alex seriously doubted that.

It wasn't his life at stake this time, and he wasn't about to be almost drowned to _encourage_ him to talk, but Alex still knew exactly what sort of test to expect now. Test and de-conditioning both.

The doctor had used that trigger on Alex a total of three times so far. He hadn't given any orders, simply used the word – name – in what Alex assumed was a way to get him used to his reaction to it. Now he clearly intended to test Alex's ability to refuse an order when every instinct told him to obey.

If Alex just broke down and talked, maybe he didn't have what it took to run an organisation like SCORPIA. At least Dr Three had made sure to choose a subject that would give Alex added incentive to stay quiet.

Alex closed his eyes for a second. Felt his heartbeat calm again now that he knew the sort of trap he had stepped into and familiar, quiet resignation settle in place of panicked adrenaline. He knew Dr Three wouldn't harm him physically but that wasn't all that much of a comfort.

He opened his eyes again and met the doctor's gaze without flinching. He could try to lie but knew it would be useless. It was easier not to cooperate at all.

"I don't know what you're talking about, sir."

There might have been a flicker of fond approval in the man's expression at the very deliberate echo of Alex's mantra during RTI. Then it was gone.

" _Orion._ The full story, if you please."

Alex's fingers clenched around the armrest, nails digging into fabric as the onslaught of memories followed, of water and darkness and cold and the terrifying knowledge that he was _dying -_

It would, some small, distant part of Alex's mind acknowledged, be a long day.

* * *

Alex spent that evening with a headache that even the strongest painkillers he had around only partially dulled. He hadn't caved to Dr Three's order but right now he was too drained to appreciate that. All he could focus on was his endless list of things to do and the bed he wouldn't be able to crawl into for hours to come. At least he had company. Normally he would have preferred to be alone, but Jack was the exception to the rule. Well, Jack and Yassen, but Yassen was a couple of countries away. Alex knew; he had checked.

In-between assignments, homework, mental to-do lists, Tom's security, his doctor-approved exercises, the light reading from Yassen's birthday present, and time with Jack, Alex had taken to keeping track of Yassen's whereabouts, because it wasn't like he had enough to do, at _all._ It didn't help him much, not really, but it made him feel a little better to know just what was going on around him.

The first time Yassen left for a longer period of time had been four days ago; to Manila with Nile in tow to ensure the stability of the part of Yu's snakehead that SCORPIA had managed to take over. At the same time Alex got to deal with Dr Three's very helpful de-conditioning, Yassen had continued on to Kandahar while Nile stayed in Manila to take permanent control of the operation there. To Alex's knowledge, Yassen had landed just a few hours earlier.

Nile's new position was very different from the job as second in command to a member of the board but Alex was pretty sure it wasn't a demotion. It was like what Nile had done in Lagos, just on a much larger scale. He would have free hands to run the operation however he saw fit, SCORPIA's only requirement was that it was successful and profitable. If Nile managed that well enough, he would end up a very wealthy man in the process. It was a risky operation with a number of enemies just looking for the chance to take over – Yassen and Dr Three wouldn't have left Nile in charge otherwise – but the potential benefits matched that risk.

Knowing Nile, Alex figured he would appreciate that sort of challenge. It left a lot of opportunities for the man's unique brand of hands-on management. Whatever doubts Yassen and Dr Three might have had about his loyalty had obviously been resolved, too. Alex was pretty sure he didn't want to ask about the details.

Not that he had time to do that, anyway. He hadn't managed to finish the report about the meeting with the CIA until well past midnight the night before, and the deadline for the threat assessment was the following morning. It was probably on purpose. Alex had his instructions. If he couldn't manage his time, that was hardly Dr Three's problem.

Doing homework with Jack had become a regular thing. Between the two of them, they did their best to work their way through not only the long to-do lists and endless amount of homework but the snacks and sodas in the mini-fridge as well. As far as Alex was concerned, if Yassen wanted him to stick to a strictly healthy diet, he should have stuck around to enforce it. Between his injury, the doctor, and that towering workload, Alex personally felt he deserved those snacks.

Part of him had forgotten just how much homework he had done those three months at the school. The memory was kind of drowned out by the endless assignments Dr Three usually left him with. He was swiftly reminded again by the piles of papers Jack usually showed up with.

"I thought I was done with this sort of thing when I graduated," she groaned that evening. She had been polite enough not to mention how tired Alex looked. Just grabbed an energy drink and a solid handful of candy and settled down at the table.

Alex looked up from the executive summary of his threat assessment. It was the last part of it he had left to do. Summarising a report of that size on two pages without losing important information was almost as much of a pain as the actual report had been and the lingering headache really didn't help on it. His first draft of that summary had been almost four pages. A rewrite later and he was still at two and a half pages. He had another half a page to cut and somehow he didn't think changing the font size would go over well. Maybe if he used more abbreviations? It was something to keep in mind, he decided. Getting creative with punctuation wouldn't be enough to buy him half a page and he doubted that would go over well, either.

The stack of papers in front of Jack looked suspiciously like maths. Upside-down maths from his vantage point but clearly a lot of equations.

It didn't look all that familiar from his own time at the school, either. "Self-study?" he guessed.

"Yup." Jack somehow managed to draw out the 'p'.

She had already finished some of them. Several others bore the distinct impression of several layers of erased pencil-marks. One had what looked like a dead smiley drawn where the solution should have been. Alex supposed that one really hadn't gone well at all.

Alex pulled one of the sheets across the table to look at it. The equations were more complicated than what he had done at Brookland, sure, but the school books from Yassen had been more advanced than what he should have been working on back in London. He would need to look up some examples but he suspected he could work it out. Well enough to help Jack figure it out, too. He had always been good at maths.

"… I'll help you with that if you'll help me with my summary?" he offered. "I still need to cut it by half a page."

Maybe that way they would both get to bed before midnight, though Alex doubted he would sleep well with Dr Three's voice still echoing in his ears.

 _Orion._

Alex suppressed a shudder and forced the memory away.

Jack pulled his laptop across the table for a look at the summary. He watched the slight movement of her eyes as she skimmed the first few lines. "Deal."

Yassen and Dr Three had always encouraged him to use whatever resources he had available to him. If that didn't include Jack, well, they could just have been a little more precise in their encouragements.

* * *

In the end, Alex's threat assessment turned into a fifty-plus page monster of a report. He had tried to strike a balance between enough detail for the full picture but with an analysis that was still clear and concise enough for Dr Three's expectations. He just hoped he had done a decent enough job.

Dr Three accepted the folder with a small nod. Glanced at the last sheet, probably for the page number, then closed the folder again.

"A summary, if you please."

The executive summary was on the second page of the report – two pages precisely, with about half a line to spare – though Alex knew better than to just repeat what it said. Dr Three might have said 'a summary' but Alex suspected it would be closer to an examination once the questions started. Or an interrogation, if the doctor didn't feel Alex had done well enough.

"Of SCORPIA's competitors, only a few are currently of a size and level of influence where they pose a serious problem," Alex began. "There are a number of other, less influential ones, but they're not enough of a danger to SCORPIA at the moment to bother with when there are more serious threats out there. Glaive and two or three of the organisations that have grown from the leftovers of Yu's snakehead are the main issues on a short-term basis. Of those, Glaive is the most established and the one most used to dealing with SCORPIA. They will take a wait-and-see approach to the situation."

Dr Three made a humming sound. It wasn't quite agreement. It wasn't disagreement, either. Just carefully neutral. "They are a strong competitor."

"And they didn't get to that size by being stupid," Alex argued. "They'll let someone else take the risk. If that someone succeeds, it would be easy to strike against them in turn. If they fail, Glaive could target us if we were sufficiently weakened from the attack. They've started to expand their business in south-east Asia. They'll continue that while we're focused on rebuilding our strength. That business is guaranteed profitable compared to the risk of taking on SCORPIA itself."

Their business overlapped to a large degree, SCORPIA and Glaive, but not completely, and SCORPIA was still strong. Glaive had always taken a more cautious approach than SCORPIA had. Alex doubted they were about to take unnecessary risks now.

Even SCORPIA had been cautious for the first many years of its existence. It was only recently they had started to cross the line as far as the intelligence community was concerned. Glaive's cautious approach and SCORPIA relative strength meant that Glaive was smaller and less influential but also less of a target.

Dr Three nodded slightly. Alex could still get nothing from him, good or bad.

"And the emerging snakeheads?" the doctor prompted.

Alex hesitated. Glaive had been easy. It was an established organisation that had run a tight ship for years. Yu's competitors, on the other hand …

"The situation is still unstable. The new power balance is starting to take shape but it could be years before it's stable. Yu ran things with an iron fist. He had no competitors anywhere near his level, only smaller operations that either stayed out of his way or were crushed the moment they looked like they might become a problem. The sensible of those organisations have stayed mostly out of it. They have too much to lose. The ones that are fighting for that territory now lack the experience to be cautious. They have a lot to win if they can claim part of Yu's old business and not that much to lose. They all know they're just one lucky shot away from losing everything, anyway. Most of them are not technically a threat, but the biggest two or three could cause us real problems if they decide to take their chances and not just stick to fighting over Yu's former territory."

"Winston always knew how to ensure a stable business environment," Dr Three agreed.

 _Stable business environment._ What a polite way to describe someone whose mere displeasure had apparently been enough to drive grown men to suicide. Alex still vividly remembered Yassen's file on Yu and his operations.

"It was a pity we lost his influence in the area but some things are unavoidable, unfortunately," the doctor continued. "I agree with the assessment, though. Your recommendation for handling it?"

That … hadn't been part of the assignment, though Alex wasn't really surprised. Unexpected questions like that would be a good way to test if he had actually done a thorough job. It wasn't a question he had really considered but he had spent enough time researching the topic to have an answer, anyway. He had planned enough theoretical assignments as training with Yassen for that.

"Pre-emptive surgical strikes," Alex replied almost instantly. The assassin's approach, not that the doctor could be that surprised considering who trained Alex. "Take out the leaders and you take out what experience they do have. Cut off enough of the head and the rest of the organisation will crumble. Their organisations are still unstable, even the largest ones. None of them are stable enough to handle a loss like that."

Dr Three nodded. "Efficient. I expect Yassen would be pleased to hear such an approach suggested. Did he ever share with you the story of how the _Fer de Lance_ came into his possession?"

Alex remembered that one. "He took out a good part of the leadership of SCORPIA's biggest competitor at the time."

"They never recovered," the doctor agreed. "The organisation fell apart within a year. A sensible company will plan for such eventualities. Those snakeheads that may pose a problem are too young and have spent too many resources fighting amongst themselves to have had the chance to do the same."

A sensible company. Caught up in the discussion, Alex's mouth voiced the question before his brain could stop it.

"Did SCORPIA? Plan for it?"

He realised too late that asking something like that might bring a lot of trouble down on his head if Dr Three took it badly. Before he could start to panic, the man smiled, a genuinely fond little gesture.

"That would require the executive board to care what might happen to the organisation in the event of their deaths. Something that might even potentially benefit those responsible for their demise. No, Alex. Without the board, SCORPIA would fall. Parts would survive, of course, but SCORPIA as an entity would be gone. Had Yassen taken over himself, it would have gone somewhat better, but he does not yet have the experience to run a business alone."

Alex wondered if Yassen had known. Probably. He had probably planned for it, too. It would have been a lot less bloody than if SCORPIA had collapsed completely but still more violent than the much calmer takeover Dr Three had arranged for, Alex understood that now. Maybe the doctor didn't want to continue being involved in politics and board business, but for now those two decades of experience was what kept the organisation as stable as it was.

SCORPIA might still lose some valuable businesses before things settled down again but less than they would have otherwise. The former members of the board had kept their own assets close, otherwise SCORPIA would have taken over Yu's business and Duval's network of contacts upon their deaths, but after two decades, Alex didn't doubt Dr Three had a pretty good idea of how to run things alone. Some sacrifices probably had to be made but with trusted subordinates, most of the organisation could be kept under control. Yassen wouldn't have been able to do it nearly as smoothly alone.

Maybe their alliance wasn't an easy one – and Alex really could have done without being alone with Dr Three – but he could see the advantages to both sides of the deal. Maybe they couldn't trust each other but they both had plenty of incentive to make it work, even without the threats and blackmail lurking right beneath the surface.

Honestly, Alex wouldn't have been surprised if the old executive board had operated much the same way. It would be familiar ground to the doctor.

"We will return to the best way to handle our potential competitors in Yu's wake later," Dr Three continued. "For now, I would like your assessment of the intelligence community."

Dr Three had never specified what he wanted Alex's threat assessment to cover, just that he wanted it done. Alex had played it safe and looked at everything he could. Not just the criminal world but the more legitimate one as well … as much as that word applied to intelligence agencies, anyway. He was grateful for that now; that slight elation of getting a particularly difficult trick question right. Maybe the doctor had expected him to overlook that angle or maybe he had simply taken it for granted that Alex would include it. Either way, it was one more test passed.

"The CIA could be a problem but if we manage to get things settled all right, they will leave us alone. Well, to the same degree that they have before, at least," Alex replied. "They have enough to deal with already. If we're prepared to not make enough of a mess that they're forced to act, they'll take that. They've been a good customer in the past and I don't think they're willing to give that up. We can get things done without the politics and they're used to that sort of convenience now."

A slight nod. "MI6? We do have a history with them as well."

Invisible Sword. Sayle, if MI6 knew where he got the smallpox virus from – and with Yassen hired to work security for him, odds were that they had a pretty good idea. The assassin that had worked for Damian Cray might have become a problem, too, but there had been no evidence left after the crash of Air Force One to link SCORPIA to that disaster, even if it had only been minor help to Alex's knowledge.

Alex hesitated. He couldn't claim to be an expert in what went on in Alan Blunt's head. He doubted anyone had much of an idea, really. The man probably kept secrets even to himself. It didn't help that it was personal, either. Alex had a lot of issues with MI6, and the colder, analytical part of him that sounded suspiciously like Yassen had no problem pointing out that he was emotionally compromised. That could make for a flawed analysis.

SCORPIA had a thorough file on Alan Blunt. Reading through it, Alex got the impression that even SCORPIA's best psychologists and analysts sometimes came up short when it came to the inner workings of Blunt's mind. They had a good idea – and Alex did reluctantly agree with their conclusions – but the file felt less confident to him than some of the others did. It did make for useful reading, though.

Alex kept his breathing slow and steady and forced himself to focus on the facts. To keep everything that had happened those months after Ian's murder at a distance. To rely on SCORPIA's assessment of the man and his own experiences, not his anger and bitterness.

"Blunt is practical," Alex said. "Brutally pragmatic. Success at any cost. If SCORPIA returns to what it used to be and we're no longer the same terrorist threat the board made us in the past few years, we will be just one more convenient weapon to him, if a very expensive one."

Alex didn't doubt it, either. It would be a very MI6 sort of approach to things. Success at any cost, including the life of a schoolboy if necessary. Blunt wouldn't make it personal. If SCORPIA became more of a useful business partner than a threat to Her Majesty's interests once more, Blunt would ignore any lingering issues from Invisible Sword and whatever else they had been involved with on his watch. It was so very convenient to simply be able to pick up the phone and order an assassination, no questions asked and no potentially bothersome paper trails.

Dr Three still didn't give any indication as to whether he agreed or not. Just another of those slight nods.

"He has always been a merciless man, even for the head of an intelligence agency. ASIS?"

That one was slightly easier than MI6, at least. Probably because he could keep that emotional distance.

"They might just make it personal. Yu is gone and his Australian business taken over by other competitors, but we don't know if ASIS is aware that he was behind Operation Reef Encounter. If they do, they may not be satisfied with his death. They never forgave Chase's betrayal. They always took a particular interest in him, even with much bigger threats out there. Chase's part in the creation of SCORPIA will count against us but not enough to make them a problem. If they find out about Yu, though, that could easily change. We'll have to wait and see to know for sure what approach they settle for. I think mutual avoidance is the best case scenario. They've never been on our list of clients before, probably because of Chase. I think it would take a lot to change that."

"The mirror image to MI6 in some regards," Dr Three commented. "As brutal and practical as Blunt if necessary but far more emotional when it comes to business matters. They always had that personal touch to things. Some would consider it a weakness. In many ways, I believe it has been a strength instead. It has given them a degree of unpredictability that has served them well at times."

Alex had no idea of whether that was true or not but stayed silent. He would trust Dr Three's judgement on that. He had a lot more experience with the various intelligence agencies than Alex did.

"A quite acceptable summary," Dr Three finally concluded.

Alex didn't breathe a sigh of relief, though he really wanted to. It didn't mean he couldn't have messed up a ton of things in the actual report but it was a good start.

Dr Three opened the report. Alex watched him for any sign of his thoughts but could get nothing. Should he have written more? Less? Had he been too thorough? Not thorough enough? The man's face gave away nothing. Alex did strongly suspect that if his summary hadn't lived up to the doctor's expectations, he wouldn't have bothered with the report at all.

The doctor picked up a pen and glanced over at Alex, the perfect image of the kind, elderly school teacher. "I expect it will take me a while to read through. You are free to work on your other assignments until then."

Because Alex would be able to focus on anything else, _sure._ It wasn't like his full attention would be on any slight indication Dr Three might make about his opinion on that report. Not at all.

Alex didn't say that, though. Just nodded and brought out his Arabic homework. The doctor's attention had already returned to the report.

"Yes, sir."

It wasn't until then that Alex realised he hadn't used 'sir' to address the doctor at any time during his brief summary and that the man hadn't corrected it once.

He glanced up. Met Dr Three's eyes above the stack of paper and wasn't even surprised. The doctor could read him like an open book. He had probably seen that moment of realisation. Had there been a lesson somewhere in that discussion of sorts? Something in the man's expression told him yes.

"Your homework, Alexander," the man reminded him.

"… Sir," Alex agreed.

He returned to his worksheet but didn't really see the page, his attention still on the brief exchange with the doctor. There was definitely a lesson somewhere. Alex just had to figure out what it was.

* * *

Next: Some people just roll with the punches. Alex is a little envious.


	77. Naples

A/N: As always, thank you for reading :)

* * *

Two days later, Alex found himself departing Abu Dhabi on a small business jet in the hazy light of pre-dawn. He wasn't alone, either. Jean and two of his people were on board as well, as were Adams and Shale. The rest of Sagitta were still elsewhere, working on the training Yassen had arranged for them, but Alex figured the trip would be a good test run for later. The meeting with the CIA would have a lot more security and be a lot riskier than a brief trip to talk to Jerry Harris.

It was a short trip, but one he had arranged for himself with Yassen and Dr Three's permissions, and it served as the next step of his careful plans for Tom's security. Some things were best handled in person and getting Jerry on board with those plans was one of them.

Alex wasn't comfortable with leaving Jack on her own at Malagosto but he didn't have a choice, either. To show too much concern for her or worse, to let his worry influence his decisions by bringing her along … it wouldn't end well for either of them.

Alex hadn't been nervous until the plane took off. He had been too busy to even think about it much, trusting Jean and Adams to handle things. He had Dr Javadi's permission to travel, and Dr Three had graciously refrained from sending him off with extra homework, so that was a small blessing. It was still a test, Alex was sure, but it was also a break from things.

Now the reality of it slowly settled. The easiest way to make things look legitimate to any outsider would be to use Jerry Harris as a their cover. It wouldn't convince MI6, of course, but anyone else who might take a closer look to see if Tom could be used against Alex would hopefully not make the connection between an ordinary boarding school and Alex. Not with Jerry around to take the credit for it.

If Alex couldn't convince Jerry it was a good idea, they would still go ahead with things, but it would be riskier with Alex directly involved. If Jerry refused, Alex would have little choice. Tom wouldn't trust a random stranger that showed up to offer a place at a boarding school several countries away. It would have to be someone he knew and trusted these days, and Jack's association with SCORPIA would become common knowledge soon enough. Jerry was the only possible neutral party Alex could think of that could work. The only one not tangled up in intelligence agencies or terrorist organisations.

Jerry knew what had happened to Alex. The broad strokes, anyway. Tom had shared. Alex wasn't sure if that made it easier or harder. On one hand, there would be less he would have to explain. Jerry was somewhat in the know already. On the other, that also meant Jerry knew what Alex had been up to. Assassin. Murderer. Terrorist.

Alex took a slow breath and forced the thought aside. He could do nothing about it now, anyway. Just do his best when they arrived and hope it would be enough.

Adams glanced over at the sound, a question in his eyes. Alex had the nagging suspicion they had all been told to keep an eye on his health and general state.

"Just …" Alex trailed off. "… Things," he finished and it sounded stupid even to his own ears.

Adams shrugged. "He's pretty laid back, right? Tends to roll with things? It'll be fine. He knows you."

"Sure," Alex said, a little dryly. "Except I've never met him in person and he has only the stuff he's heard from Tom to go on when it comes to me. Jerry had already done a runner out of Britain by the time I met Tom."

"He also wants his kid brother to be safe and away from the parents. I would, anyway, in his situation. It'll be fine," Adams repeated.

Alex really wasn't convinced but he appreciated the effort and the distraction was nice. He had a ton of things he should work on. Right now he didn't want to and doubted he could focus, anyway.

"How's Marcus?" he asked instead.

"Probably bitching about classes," Adams said. "Back to school for him. It's not like he can do hard physical exercise right now. That's what he gets for getting himself shot. Teach him to be a little more careful next time."

Alex's chest still hurt when he wasn't careful. He still couldn't do anything near the sort of exercise he was used to. Marcus didn't have the lung damage but he did have two broken ribs compared to Alex's one. He probably wasn't doing that much better. He might get a clean bill of health in another month if everything went well but Alex could imagine he was already restless. Marcus was not someone who liked to be idle and his patience outside of assignments wasn't exactly a shining example of calm, grace, and dignity. D'Arc and Dr Steiner had recommended against a place at Malagosto for him for a reason and it wasn't just his inability to work alone.

That did make Alex curious about something else. Yassen had sent off the rest of the team for executive protection training. Alex had been put through something similar but that had only been for a few days followed by his brief stay in Baghdad much later. It had probably been SCORPIA's way to see what kind of potential they had to work with. A teenage operative with bodyguard training on top of Malagosto's usual classes was valuable. Alex had enjoyed that course, however brief it might have been. It had been interesting and a nice change from everything else.

"How's the course you got sent on?"

Adams didn't reply for a few seconds. He looked like he considered the question but not in a bad way.

"Not as boring as I thought it would be," was the verdict. "Pretty interesting, actually. It would probably be a boring job for someone protecting a CEO or some spoiled celebrity. Well, if you did your job properly, anyway. I have the suspicion it'll be a little more interesting around you, though."

They knew the reasons behind, then. Either Yassen had told them or they had worked it out themselves. They weren't stupid. They knew politics when they saw it.

Alex hesitated. "You don't mind?"

Sagitta was used to combat. Hunter-killer missions was what they were trained for. All of them had military background. They were soldiers. Mercenaries now but trained soldiers. Permanent security duty would be a very different thing.

"We don't get paid to have opinions," Adams said and sounded like he rattled off an often-repeated mantra. It sounded familiar from Alex's own training. "And it won't exactly be an easy assignment. You know how many people you pissed off when you skipped out of England to sign up with SCORPIA instead? You've got enemies already and that's not counting the ones you've made since then or whoever you'll piss off as Gregorovich's right hand."

Yassen had definitely told them. Adams sounded a little too familiar with the situation for someone who didn't have access to Alex's file.

"I have a pretty good idea," Alex said dryly.

SCORPIA's elite operatives all had a lot of enemies. Even if the operative themselves didn't have anyone out for their blood specifically, their position alone made them valuable targets. Alex could add a lot more people on top of that. Maybe MI6 or the CIA or whoever wouldn't take Alex's defection personally but he was still a high-value target. Not just for his position but for his knowledge about the intelligence community as well. And the more visible he became in the months and years to come …

No, it would not be easy. Alex wondered if their missions in combat zones might not actually have been safer.

"Relax. Take it as a break from things," Adams said, unknowingly echoing Alex's own thoughts. "You get a day away from the school and the bosses."

Point. A busy day, sure, and that knot of anxiety was still stuck in Alex's chest, but it was still a break. He just had to remember that.

* * *

Alex arrived in Naples just past eight in the morning under a clear spring sky and in the shadow of a slumbering volcano. Most of the rest of Jean's men had arrived two days prior to get a good look at things and handle security. Only a few remained at Tom's future school to make sure there were no lapses in surveillance there, either.

With that sort of company, everyone had more or less agreed they should be able to keep Alex out of trouble for a day. Well, part of a day. He would spend most of it on that business jet. Alex would have objected to that tendency to plan for trouble if it wasn't for the fact that he did tend to end up in … interesting situations. And the company was nice, anyway. It was a lot of trouble to go through for a brief talk but Alex wanted to do it in person. He wanted to actually meet Jerry, and hopefully the odds that Jerry would agree to the plan would be better if they met face to face to discuss it.

Jerry Harris' apartment was on the top floor in a less than stellar neighbourhood of Naples. Jean had a key. Alex didn't ask but did make a mental note to tell Jerry to get a new, better lock.

Jean's two men stayed outside the apartment building. Only Jean, Adams, and Shale would be around for the actual meeting. Alex didn't want Jerry to feel ridiculously outnumbered.

"He is due home in about half an hour going by his normal schedule," Jean said like it was the most natural thing in the world to know. "He has a two-hour break between classes today."

A better lock, Alex decided, and maybe a reminder to Jerry to change up his routines a little while he was at it. Though he supposed that wasn't exactly a concern for normal people. If Jerry wanted to have habits and routines, he could do that.

Alex wasn't sure what he had expected from the place but he wasn't entirely surprised. The living room was wide open and the furniture sparse. A mattress rested against one of the walls. An old couch dominated the middle of the room. An uneven table had been pushed to the side and was mostly covered in stuff; a mix of papers and some pens, colourful brochures, and candy wrappings. The tiny kitchen wasn't much better, so bare that Alex was sure even cockroaches would have starved. The closest thing to food was a jar of instant coffee.

The only part of the place that looked new was the mess of sports equipment in the corner of the room, ranging from a skateboard and all the way up to a parachute.

Alex was willing to bet that every single piece of furniture had been free. They had the looks of it. Then again, Jerry moved around a lot. What was the point of having fancy stuff if it just meant you had to pay to move it? Jerry Harris made a decent enough living but not enough to pay for both his love of extreme sports and a nice, well-furnished place to live. He had clearly chosen his hobby over a home. It seemed like something Tom would have done, too.

Alex settled down on the leather couch to wait. It was a little uneven but not bad. It would probably kill your back to sleep on, though.

It was forty minutes later when they heard a key in the lock and the door opened.

Jerry Harris was much as Alex remembered him from his file and Tom's photos. Slightly older, more mature, and with longer hair, but otherwise much the same and clearly related to Tom.

Jerry paused in the doorway, a duffel bag over one shoulder. Took in the sight of three grown men and a teenager in his apartment. His eyes focused on Alex and he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Alex could almost see him take in the situation and consider his next move. He could see the moment of recognition, too.

"You're Tom's friend. Alex." Jerry dropped the duffel bag by the mattress. "He showed me a photo. You've gotten bigger since then."

The 'roll with it'-approach. That didn't surprise Alex, either. It fit with the Jerry he remembered from Tom's stories. The one who had taught Tom how to handle their arguing parents. Sure, Alex had shown up uninvited in the middle of his apartment in Italy, with what could easily be three trained killers along for company, and Jerry had no clue what the meeting could possibly be about, but that didn't matter. Just roll with it.

"Bit older, too," Alex agreed. "Teenage boys grow like weeds."

Even Tom, according to his file, though he would probably still end up an inch or two shorter than Alex.

Jerry's lips twitched slightly. "Yeah, the puberty fairy will do that."

His attention drifted from Alex and to his other uninvited guests and then back to Alex again and his expression got a little more serious. "I can't imagine you came all this way with this many people just for the wonderful company. What's the deal?"

Alex took a deep breath. Somehow his nerves were all the worse when it was something that mattered this much to him. "You know what I'm involved with these days. Tom told you, it's in MI6's surveillance records. I want to arrange for a permanent security detail for Tom. I would like your help to do it. Jack was kidnapped recently. She's fine now but she was targeted to get to me, and the only contact I'd had with her at that point was a single, short phone call more than a year ago. I can't say for sure that Tom will be targeted but there is a legitimate risk."

"Tom says MI6 keeps an eye on him." Jerry's expression was thoughtful. Almost calculating but not really in a malicious way.

"For surveillance and only because they want to get to me. They're not going to be worth a damn thing if he becomes a target." Alex almost managed to keep the bitterness from his voice. "Jack was in a CIA safe-house. Kurst, the man who had her kidnapped – his people killed every single agent there, just to make a point. Blunt won't lift a finger to help Tom if it's going to cost him the same sort of thing. Even if Tom never becomes a target from others, MI6 might still try to use him against me later. They'll threaten and blackmail him if that's what it takes, but they'll get what they want."

Jerry nodded slowly. Alex had no idea what went on in his head but he sighed softly and continued before Jerry could speak.

"I'm sorry. I can't make Tom not a target, and I know it wouldn't have happened in the first place if I wasn't part of SCORPIA now, but I can do my best to keep him safe."

The apartment fell silent. No one spoke for long seconds.

"What's the plan?" Jerry finally asked. "Why do you need me?"

"I want him out of England, away from MI6 in case they get any ideas. I found a boarding school in Switzerland that focuses on sports. It's close enough to Zurich that he won't go crazy staring at the same walls all the time but remote enough that it has decent security. It has a good reputation. Tom will hopefully leave with good grades and a much better choice in future careers. SCORPIA will pay for everything – tuition, transportation, supplies, security. No strings and no conditions. I need someone to be the public face of the arrangement. If he stays in London, he might be a target. If someone finds out I arranged for this, he'll be extremely valuable as a way to get to me. That risk will be a lot less if we can keep my involvement with this a secret. I need you to be our cover so we can keep my name out it."

It felt a little like blackmail – help us or your little brother will be in much more danger – but Alex could do nothing about that. Jerry had to know that, too.

Jerry made a slight hum. "Sounds expensive."

"SCORPIA wants me happy," Alex said bluntly. "That's worth a lot more to them right now than the price of this sort of thing is. I want Tom safe, and Tom wants to leave England. This way we both get what we want."

Even if it turned out to be really expensive, and Alex knew it would. Yassen had picked some of SCORPIA's best guards for the Santa Catarina operation. Jean and his team did not come cheap.

"And if it stops being worth it to them?"

Valid question. Alex answered the only way he could. "If I do my job right, it won't."

"That's not a guarantee." Jerry wasn't stupid. He could read between the lines just fine.

"No," Alex admitted. "It isn't."

"And if Tom doesn't agree? He's not a big fan of school," Jerry pointed out. "Maybe he'll decide it's worth it to stick to a school he knows he can handle and put up with things until he can leave on his own."

Alex knew that, too. It was a risk. Tom loved sports. He loved everything physical. He didn't mind the other classes but his grades were far from great. Alex had picked a boarding school that focused on sports not just to make Tom happy but also, a little selfishly, to make it more likely he would go along with the plan in the first place. It didn't change the fact that the place would be a lot more demanding than Brookland was. It was for Tom's own good and Alex could acknowledge that, too, but there was still that touch of manipulation. Alex blamed Yassen's influence. Yassen and Dr Three.

"I'll do my best to convince him. If that fails, I'll arrange for discreet security in London."

 _Whatever it takes._ It wouldn't be easy but Alex would find a way to do it, one way or the other. He wasn't going to leave Tom at MI6's mercy. Not when he was in a position to actually do something for once.

Jerry nodded. He had to have heard that unspoken promise.

"Are they good? Security," he clarified.

"Good enough that my boss trusted them at his back, and they've worked security for teenagers before." Alex gestured at his side. "Jean here is head of the team."

Jean, John, Ivan, whatever identity he preferred to use. With the Ivan and John identities burned on Santa Catarina, Alex supposed it wasn't a surprise the man stuck with Jean for now. Graff's little operation had been expensive in a lot of ways.

Jerry's attention returned to Jean and this time stayed there for a good while. Jerry watched him and Jean watched him back, utterly indifferent to the close scrutiny. If it bothered Jerry that Tom's potential security detail was part of a terrorist organisation, he didn't let it show.

Anyone else would have refused. Anyone else would have played along until Alex and the others left and then called the police. Anyone else would at least have looked uneasy. Jerry just went along with it. Alex could see where Tom got his approach to life from.

Finally Jerry nodded again and looked back at Alex. "What do you need from me?"

"Get Tom here without raising suspicion. I'll talk with him, give him the offer in person, and introduce him to Jean. The paperwork is all in place. If Tom agrees, we can have him enrolled by early April. The cover is that you arranged for that place at the school."

Jerry made another thoughtful hum. "It's a bit of a short notice but that's what the parents expect from me, anyway. MI6 might be suspicious, though. I can't pay for something like that, I don't have the money. They'll never believe it unless they decide I've joined the Camorra or something."

"MI6 will know it was me," Alex admitted. "They know me too well and they've got too much intel on the whole situation. Hopefully no one else will put the pieces together. Outside of England and with enough security in place, Tom won't be worth the headache to them. Blunt would be much happier if I weren't a loose end but they have no reason to target Tom for it. Not yet, anyway. They know what happened to the CIA agents. He's not worth it right now and I want him out of their reach before that changes."

If Alex lived long enough to take over after Yassen, Tom would be valuable. He would be valuable the second someone realised Alex was being trained as Yassen's successor, and that might be a matter of months. Yassen and Dr Three obviously didn't plan to keep it a secret.

"Makes sense," Jerry agreed. "One more question. Why?"

 _Because it's my fault. Because I owe it to him. Because I left him to a shitty home life and he deserves better. Because he won't be another piece in Blunt's game if I can help it._

In SCORPIA-language the acceptable answer would have been something like _'_ _S_ _o he can't be used against me'._ Alex didn't care. Not about the acceptable answer and not that he was around SCORPIA's own people, several of which were likely under orders from Yassen to give a thorough report afterwards. Not when this was possibly the only person in the world who cared more about Tom's well-being than Alex did.

"Because he's my friend."

They hadn't had any actual contact in almost two years. Alex didn't care about that, either. It was still Tom and Alex would do whatever he could to protect him. He had acted too late to keep Jack safe but he wasn't about to make the same mistake again. And if his reply had been just a little defiant, well, that was his own damn business.

Jerry gave a half-smile. A little reluctant but mostly amused.

"I guess he could have worse friends, shady career or not. I'll get him here," Jerry agreed. "Get in touch in a few days and I'll have it settled."

Alex let out a soft breath and felt the tension in his body slowly ease. He was so used to the pressure by now that having that burden gone felt – odd, almost. The relief that at least one thing had started to fall into place. Conversation over, Alex got up. The others prepared to leave as well.

"Thank you." It felt like the right thing to say. SCORPIA did the work but it would be a little easier with Jerry's cooperation.

Jerry shook his head. "Tom was pretty defensive of you when we talked. Kept insisting you were still you and that MI6 didn't have a clue what they were talking about. Prove him right."

Something about the words made Alex feel a little warmer and a little less lonely.

"I will. And you need a better lock," he added before he forgot.

Jerry smiled in genuine amusement and spread out his arms in a grand gesture to encompass the entire apartment. "It's good enough. What's here to steal? The gear isn't even here most weekends."

The mattress? The couch? The jar of instant coffee? He wasn't even sure how someone had managed to get that couch through the door in the first place.

"… Point," Alex admitted.

Jerry shook his head. "I'll look into it. Might be good for security. People here know me, I belong here, but it doesn't hurt to have."

"I'll pay."

"I'm not that bad off," Jerry said. "And you're getting Tom out of England. We'll call it even."

That sounded like a fair enough deal to Alex. They had Jerry on board with the plan. That increased the chance that Tom would agree by quite a lot.

As they left the apartment and slowly made their way back through the crowded streets of Naples, he did his best to ignore the sudden nerves. If everything went right, he would see Tom again within a few weeks.

He'd had no chance to get nervous about seeing Jack. Tom … Tom would be something else entirely.

* * *

"An interesting personality, the Harris boy," Jean said when they were back on the plane and waited to take off.

They had stopped for lunch on the way. Alex had justified it as a chance to get a look at possible security issues, since they would be back for the meeting with Tom, but it had really just been an excuse to take a break and look at the city. He wouldn't have much time for sightseeing in the future.

Alex suspected both Adams and Jean could have overruled that decision if they felt like it. Instead they had indulged him. Maybe they had wanted a good, solid lunch before the flight as well. Alex wasn't going to ask.

"They don't have a good relationship with most of their family," Alex said and answered the unspoken question. "Their parents' marriage got steadily worse and it took years before they got a divorce. A messy one, too. The worst nights, Tom stayed with me and Jack. Sometimes several nights in a row. They didn't argue as much back when Jerry was still around according to Tom. It was more like passive-aggressive stuff back then. Jerry learned to roll with things to stay sane and Tom picked up the same approach."

"Similar personalities, then," Jean concluded. Alex didn't doubt he was slowly building up a solid file on the teenage boy they would soon be responsible for.

"Tom always looked up to him. Older brother, plus he managed to get out of that house?" Alex replied. "Tom never blamed Jerry for leaving. He would have done the same. Tom has a lot of the same approach to life as Jerry."

Jean nodded slowly but didn't comment further. Alex supposed there were worse kinds of personalities to deal with.

Around them, the sound of the engines changed and grew louder. Their speed picked up and the runway fell away beneath them. Outside, Alex caught a final glimpse of Naples and Vesuvius as the small jet turned and headed east.

Alex slept most of the way back to Abu Dhabi. Maybe it wasn't the most productive way to spend his time but when he woke up the next morning, he felt better than he had in months.

* * *

Next: Yassen is a patient man. So patient that even Alex is surprised sometimes.


	78. Reminders

A/N: As always, thank you for reading, and for your reviews!

* * *

Alex didn't doubt that both Yassen and Dr Three had been given thorough reports on the meeting with Jerry in Naples. It was confirmed the morning after he returned, when he settled down in the familiar chair in Dr Three's office.

"Your meeting went well," the man noted.

Alex wasn't sure where that line of conversation was going but he was sure he would find out soon enough. "Yes, sir."

"An adaptable personality, the Harris boy. There are things to be said for negligent caretakers. Some of our best operatives are the result of such an upbringing."

Did that include Yassen? Alex would never, ever ask. He felt vaguely guilty for even wondering, like he was intruding on something private. He did wonder where Ian had belonged on the spectrum of guardians, though.

"Somewhere in the middle, I believe," Dr Three said and answered the question that had probably been obvious to him. "Too emotionally compromised to train you as harshly and effectively as he could. Not compromised enough to permit you an ordinary childhood. I believe he wished to give you the best chances of survival. To an MI6 agent of his skill and experience and with you carrying the Rider name, that sort of training would seem like the best approach."

Alex wondered if the doctor believed that or if he were lying for whatever reason. Wondered if the man was right. Alex himself wavered between Ian deliberately training him for the family trade from the moment he could walk and Ian genuinely just trying to keep Alex – active and curious – busy in any way he could. Alex would never know for sure but Dr Three's version wasn't a bad explanation. It was kinder than some he could think of.

"Both Starbright and the younger Harris are attachments," the man continued. "Tell me why we permit this."

Alex had already considered that question. He was pretty sure he had the right explanation. He was also sure that he would not like the consequences if he got it wrong.

"Because they're a weakness," he answered, as calm and level as he could. "It's better that they're in SCORPIA's grasp than used by any potential enemies. I'm emotionally compromised and that also makes them good leverage if I don't live up to expectations."

Because both Jack and Tom's safety would be on the line now if Alex didn't do well enough. Because they were safe only for as long as he was so very valuable to both Yassen and Dr Three. If he stopped being worth it, it would also stop being worth the significant cost of keeping two civilians safe. Sagitta was a weakness but the team was still a valuable SCORPIA resource. Jack and Tom weren't. If Alex failed, it wasn't just Yassen and Dr Three's disappointment he would have to deal with – and that was lethal enough on its own. It was the very real risk to Jack and Tom as well. Incentive and blackmail both. Dr Three and Yassen were both exceptionally good at their jobs.

"You have a suitable understanding of the risks," Dr Three agreed. "They remain a weakness but you are at least aware of it."

The man gestured at a solid stack of files on the desk between them. "Your assignment for the day. You will deliver a concise report on the challenges facing SCORPIA in gaining control of part of Winston's remaining snakehead operation. Five pages, nothing more."

Dr Three turned his focus to his own work again, Alex dismissed for now.

The pile of papers and folders was huge. Some of it looked like a deliberate mess, probably to stress him all the more. Some of it was probably useless or even unreliable information, too, just to make him sift through it all for the relevant facts. Dr Three had done that before.

Alex suppressed a sigh and quietly set to work.

* * *

"How did it go?" Jack asked him that night.

Alex had been back too late to see her the night before, and she had been up long before him because of a surprise physical test courtesy of Professor Yermalov, who seemed to firmly believe that any wasted opportunity to make the students miserable was a downright sin. Jack had several brand new bruises to add to her collection, and Alex had spotted one of the students with an impressive shiner. He really wasn't looking forward to being well enough to return to one-on-one lessons with Yermalov.

"Better than expected. Jerry is on board with everything. He had a couple of questions but …" Alex trailed off. "… He reminds me of Tom. Laid back and everything. He's – easygoing. I guess it makes sense. Tom got it from him."

"Probably the only way to deal with their parents and not snap," Jack said, just a little bitter.

Alex didn't blame her. He hadn't been around Tom's parents much but Jack had dealt with them a lot more. If nothing else, then to coordinate things when Alex and Tom had been younger. She had never liked Tom's parents much, he remembered vaguely. And she had never once said a word when Tom stayed the night, no matter how late he had appeared on their doorstep.

"I'm still surprised he agreed," Alex admitted. "You didn't have much of a choice -"

 _\- And I'm still sorry about that -_

"- But Tom doesn't have to get tangled up in this. We could find another solution."

"He wouldn't be any safer in London," Jack said bluntly. "This way he'll get competent security, a good education, and get away from his parents. Jerry knows that, too. The same reasons why you chose that approach in the first place."

"Still," Alex repeated. "I …"

He trailed off, not sure what to say. He wanted Tom to be safe, Tom and Jack both, and SCORPIA wasn't safe. Not in any way, shape, or form, no matter how big of a security detail he set them up with. They should be back in London, or maybe back in the States for Jack, living normal lives and not be involved with a terrorist organisation. Maybe Tom wasn't hopelessly tangled up in it yet but Alex knew it was only a matter of time.

Alex Rider got attached and that made Jack and Tom a target. He could do his best to protect them but he also knew that in the end, it might not be enough. If he had stayed in London, if he had turned Yassen down -

Something must have shown because Jack sighed and ran a hand through his hair, and the next moment Alex found himself in a familiar, warm embrace. He took a shuddering breath. Fought against the sudden surge of emotion. Before Jack had appeared in his life again, affectionate touch had been rare. Even now, they were still kept busy and mostly apart. Only with Jack around again had Alex realised how much he had missed it.

Jack didn't speak. Alex's fingers clenched in her blouse but he didn't speak, either. Not out loud, at least.

Whatever happened, he promised silently, he would make it work. Tom would be safe. Jack would be safe. Whatever it took. Part of the reason he had left London was to protect them. Maybe he couldn't offer them a normal life any more but he would do his damn best to make sure it would be a safe one, whatever else it might be.

* * *

Yassen returned from Kandahar in the late evening two days after Alex's little Italian vacation and spent the following two days discussing business and strategy with Dr Three. They worked fast. They had to, if they wanted things under firm control again before someone decided to strike against them.

Alex's usual lessons got cancelled and he got to spend the days as secretary and silent observer. He suspected that would be how things would be for months or possibly years to come. He didn't have that much to contribute with. For now, he was there to listen and learn.

Half a year ago, a lot of it would have gone over his head. Even three months ago, he wouldn't have had much of an idea of several of the subjects. Now, however, the various assignments from Dr Three along with the huge amount of required reading that went with them – ranging from geopolitical history to classified intelligence reports – had given him a surprisingly solid foundation to follow along with the conversation.

Alex understood in that moment just what Dr Three's plans were. Alex learned best through practical experience. He could have read the information just fine and remembered a lot of it, but forcing him to put it to use and actually consider what he read gave him a much better understanding of it. Most likely it was just that Dr Three had chosen the most efficient way to train Alex but in his own peculiar way, the man had been genuinely helpful.

The subjects varied. A massive drug operation with its heart in Kandahar, several large crime rings in Manila that handled trafficking of all sorts, security and mercenaries in Mogadishu, Ramos' former drug syndicate in Miami … there was a lot to keep track of, a lot of names of operatives and contacts that Alex didn't know, and the knowledge that if he ever took over SCORPIA, he would need to decide what to do about it all.

Alex had given Yassen his terms. Now that he had a better idea of the spider web of operations, it wasn't as black and white any more. Yassen had told him that already. Only now did Alex start to really grasp what he meant.

Those operations were profitable or SCORPIA wouldn't have bothered. If Alex shut them down, someone else would step in. Would he be the lesser of two evils if he kept them, then? Did he _want_ to be?

… Would he have a choice?

There were a lot of questions Alex didn't want to consider too much for now.

"How do you control an entire organisation like this with just two people?" Alex asked instead when he followed Yassen out of the office that first evening. "It's huge."

And 'huge' was an understatement. If it paid well enough, SCORPIA could arrange for it. No exceptions and no questions asked.

"Trusted subordinates." Yassen glanced at him. "Perhaps not trusted in the usual meaning of the term but trusted to do an acceptable job."

Like the operatives in charge of the various operations. People like Crux who could run a successful business, keep an iron grip on SCORPIA's territory, and increase their profits through blood and violence while they were at it. Like Dwale, trusted as Dr Three's second in command and sent off to act in his stead, allowing the doctor to remain at the relative safety of Malagosto to orchestrate things. Like Nile, now permanently stationed in Manila, who had proven himself useful and loyal enough to leave alive and who had plenty of experiences acting on the board's behalf.

Alex wouldn't have the first idea of how to decide what operatives he could and couldn't trust. Anyone who had survived with SCORPIA for long enough to be considered for that kind of responsibility would be a master at hiding any sort of dubious loyalties, too. He supposed that between Yassen and Dr Three, they had that covered just fine, though.

Another thing to learn. Another lesson on a long list of them.

"Internal politics," Yassen said, "took up a remarkable amount of time. It took years of hard work to create SCORPIA. Once it grew large enough, the rest came much easier. The board had little time for politics in the early years. By the end, they had little else. Some had their own businesses on the side but even then, they had time to spare. Two can run such an operation with the right subordinates and no politics to get in the way."

"Can one?" Alex asked before he could help himself. Yassen had planned for it, hadn't he? That Alex would handle it alone one day. He would have to think it could be done, then.

Yassen looked briefly, faintly amused. "I suppose we will find out."

How reassuring. Alex didn't comment. Just followed Yassen to get some well-deserved dinner.

* * *

It was three days after Yassen's return – six days before Alex's meeting with Tom – when Yassen rattled his world again. It was the first day that hadn't been non-stop meetings with Dr Three. The morning had been Arabic lessons but Alex had the afternoon off and spent it in his room, working on one of his endless list of assignments. Or he had until Yassen let himself inside, picked up the remote, and turned on Alex's TV.

Alex paused in the middle of a sentence. Didn't ask but watched the TV and spotted what had to be the reason for Yassen's arrival a second later.

" _\- terrorist attack on Gibraltar. So far no one has claimed responsibility -"_

" _\- confirmed dead but the number is expected to rise as emergency services -"_

" _\- aimed at a naval communications centre. Sources state that -"_

There was smoke billowing from near the top of the Rock of Gibraltar. Alex assumed that was the communications centre in question. Thick, black smoke on what appeared to be earlier footage, though it had eased up in the live pictures now. A British Overseas Territory. He wondered if Blunt was watching the same.

Yassen was calm. Alex would go so far as to say he looked satisfied about something. That alone was enough to make Alex more than suspect that whatever was going on, Yassen's fingerprints were all over it. It also made Alex wonder just what that 'naval communications centre' was a cover for, because there had to be more to it than that.

There was no expert in the studio yet to give their theories about motives, though Alex was sure the station would find someone soon enough.

"Sixteen years ago on this day," Yassen said, calm and measured, "on Albert Bridge, MI6 faked your father's death. When the executive board found out about the deceit, they unanimously sentenced him to death and left the task in Julia Rothman's hands. She chose to target all three of you to make an example and take revenge on the man who had played her for a fool."

Alex knew the story, had seen the footage as well, but something about it seemed much heavier now.

Julia Rothman, who was in MI6 custody. Julia Rothman, who had talked with Julius Grief. Julia Rothman, who was kept in a prison on -

\- Gibraltar.

Alex stilled. Julia Rothman, the only surviving member of the board save for Dr Three and Yassen himself. And Dr Three had left that matter in Yassen's hands as a gesture of good intentions.

That 'naval communication centre' was the prison run by MI6, hidden away in plain sight. If Yassen had been behind that attack, directly or not, he had just managed to gain revenge not only on MI6 but on Rothman as well. For himself and Alex both.

It had taken sixteen years but Yassen was a patient man. It wasn't until then that Alex understood just how patient he had been. Zeljan Kurst had nursed a grudge for just as long but unlike Yassen, he had been obvious about it. Yassen Gregorovich had simply carried on. Been the lethal operative that SCORPIA expected and never once let on that he knew the truth.

Maybe John Rider had betrayed his trust, maybe he had lived a lie, maybe he had tried to sway Yassen from his path, but that didn't change the fact that Yassen obviously felt he still owed a debt to Hunter.

It had taken sixteen years, but Yassen Gregorovich had taken revenge on behalf of his mentor.

Alex's own demand in the Congo drifted back to him.

 _I want them to pay for killing my parents._

Alex turned his attention from the screen to watch Yassen instead. He was not the sort of man to show any sign of emotion but that would explain why he looked satisfied. Well, to someone who could read him as well as Alex could, which was a short list.

He wondered who had been behind the actual bombing. Yassen had been in Abu Dhabi for three days now and had spent the days before that in Manila and Kandahar. The answer came to him a moment later along with the memory of one of Yassen's remarks weeks prior.

 _Given a chance to prove themselves._

"Danube," Alex stated more than asked.

Yassen nodded. "I left the task in their hands. They have done well."

High praise. If nothing unfortunate showed up later on, Alex knew Yassen had found his security team. Hill and Danube had been given a test – and not an easy one, either – and had managed to succeed to Yassen's satisfaction. Maybe it didn't prove they knew how to handle security but it had proven without any doubt that they knew how to think like an attacker would and find any weak spots in even high security. The instincts were there. The rest could be taught, just like with Sagitta.

Alex wondered how many had died to allow Yassen his revenge. Sure, it tied up the final loose end on the executive board, but Alex suspected that was just a bonus. Dr Three's offering of intel on Rothman had been a little too deliberate and valuable for the whole thing to just be a way for Yassen to remove that one remaining enemy on the board.

The staff at the prison had been killed, without a doubt. The prisoners, too. The place seemed isolated enough that it should have cut down on civilian casualties, but who knew? Alex doubted the real death toll would become known, not when the target was an illegal prison run by MI6. It wasn't like Yassen cared about collateral damage, and Danube obviously didn't, either.

A part of Alex felt bad for the people there, the staff and the prisoners and anyone innocent caught up in it, because it wasn't like any of them had chosen to be around Rothman. Another part of him felt – not numb, not really. Closer to calm. An odd feeling of closure and relief. Like he had carried around a nagging weight he hadn't even noticed and now it was finally gone. In prison or not, Julia Rothman would always have been a threat if she had been left alive, Alex knew that. Like Kurst, she would have targeted him as a way to get even with John Rider's memory. She had been the one to tell MI6 about his place with SCORPIA and probably delighted in it. Now that threat had been removed.

" _\- still unsure of the motives, though the attack may have been meant to -"_

" _\- political history and territorial claim -"_

The TV droned on. Alex watched the lights from the fire engines, captured from a safe distance. Not because of common sense but because the entire area already having been blocked off by military forces. The smoke slowly relinquished its hold on the prison. Alex wondered how much would be left of it by the end. There were ambulances, too, but he doubted they would have anything to do. Danube seemed to have done a thorough job.

Yassen finally broke the silence again.

"Remember this. This is what your enemies will do to target you in due time." He paused. "If you do your job well enough," he conceded.

Blow up an entire prison, with no consideration for collateral damage. And that was to target a board member who had been locked away for a year and a half. Not even an active threat. Just for revenge. The target on Alex's back was big enough already. In another year – or five, or ten …

Suddenly the issue of Jack and Tom's security seemed a lot more important.

"Several on the executive board," Yassen continued, "had a long record of assassination attempts. Yu survived multiple such attempts. Mikato as well. Kurst had more than any other member of the board. He all but dared his enemies to try."

And Alex would be every bit as visible as they had been. He wondered when the first attack on Yassen would happen. It was only a matter of time.

Yassen did not comment further. Watching the footage of the burning prison on Gibraltar, Alex knew he didn't need to, either.

* * *

Two days before the meeting with Tom, Alex found himself in Dr Javadi's domain again and despite his best efforts, he was a ball of restless energy.

"Sit _still_ , Mr Rider," she told him when she finally got tired of it. "You disrupt the results."

Alex stilled, not about to risk anything. It took two hours to go through every single test and check she wanted to – and some of them he strongly suspected were just to update his medical file in general, since he was there, anyway – but eventually she finished the last entry on the list.

She scribbled a note on the results; a solid stack of papers that would probably end up in his medical file before long. Alex's attention stuck to that note, even though he knew it was pointless. Even if it hadn't been upside down to him, he doubted he could have read it. Her medical notes looked like shorthand more than anything.

"Your own assessment of your health?" she eventually asked.

Was that a trick question? Maybe. Alex wouldn't be surprised if he would be banned from exercise for another couple of weeks if he tried to lie about it.

"Still a bit sore sometimes," he admitted. "And restless. Really, really restless."

The long days spent on written assignments and analysis without any kind of break beyond food really didn't help on things, either. Alex was full of restless energy and had no way to get rid of it.

"As expected," Javadi agreed. She handed him a piece of paper. Alex caught what looked like part of a workout routine and felt immediate relief set in. "You heal well. This means that you are cleared for exercise again. You will follow that plan to the letter. If you push yourself too far, if you do not follow it, or if, so help me, you injure yourself again, you will not enjoy the consequences. Have I made myself clear?"

Alex didn't have to think about that one. "Yes, ma'am."

If that was the same lecture Nile had been given, no wonder he had been so careful. Alex had certainly lost any temptation he might have had to push himself just a bit harder to get back to his full strength again a little sooner. He had behaved well after the bruised ribs in Miami but that hadn't taken nearly as long to heal and he had spent most of that time on the _Fer de Lance._ He had been restless then but it was a magnitude worse now and Javadi probably knew that, too.

"Excellent. Dismissed, Mr Rider. I will see you in two weeks. It will be in your own best interest to remain in excellent health until then."

Something in her voice was just a little too pointed. Alex wondered if she had ever studied under Dr Three. Decided just as quickly not to ask.

Knowing SCORPIA, he wouldn't like the answer.

* * *

A/N: I've used the date for the Albert Bridge deal as given in _Scorpia_ , which is March 13th. That does make Alex one month old at the time when based on his generally-accepted birthday of February 13th and not two months like Rothman claims in the book, but I can live with that.

Next: Alex hadn't imagined the thought of one single reunion would make him more of a nervous wreck than any one of his SCORPIA assignments.


	79. I'm Good

Everything considered, Tom Harris had managed to stay surprisingly up to date on things. Most of it had been through Jack. MI6 had been predictably unhelpful and their file on Tom kept a record of just how many times he had tried to get any kind of answer from them … along with a note of how much of a pest he could be about it. A part of Alex wanted to applaud that bit. The other part just got that much more determined to get Tom some proper security away from Blunt.

The CIA had kept Jack somewhat up to date in an attempt to destroy any sympathy she might have had left for Alex, and she had kept Tom in the loop as well in turn. If MI6 wasn't going to, well, she would do what she could to fix that.

Of course, that also meant that Tom knew what Alex had been up to. Everything from Russia to Jack's kidnapping. On one hand that made it easier. Alex wouldn't have to admit in person that his new career was as a professional assassin and possible future leader of a freelance terrorist organisation. On the other hand, Tom _knew_. He had known for months what Alex had done, he'd had plenty of time to let the reality of it sink in, and he would know just what sort of person Alex had become.

Alex spent the evening before the meeting checking up on his future little get-together with the CIA. Another meeting with the potential to go spectacularly wrong. It was slow work since his thoughts kept drifting but it kept his anxiety a little at bay. If he could forget it for even a minute or two, that was still a small victory.

 _Click._

Gale, their local asset in Johannesburg, had served as the primary organiser. Marcus kept a close eye on everything as added insurance. Sore, disgruntled, and still banned from harder physical tasks, but well enough to be involved on the surveillance side of things. Adams would join him after Naples.

 _Click. Click._

Naples was almost an afterthought compared to that. Still serious, sure, but SCORPIA was on decent terms with the Camorra and Alex's presence wasn't really an issue. It was a test run more than anything to Adams and the others; the chance to get used to their new career a little before the meeting with the CIA.

 _Click. Click-click. Click._

And _that_ one was a potential clusterfuck of epic dimensions. The CIA and SCORPIA had been on acceptable terms in the past, but now Kurst's second had killed eight CIA agents and that was just messy business all around, and Alex _knew_ it. SCORPIA had killed plenty of the CIA's people before, just like the CIA had targeted SCORPIA's; undercover agents, informants, anyone who proved a potential risk, but this was different. These had been guards in a safe house – a trap meant for Alex, but still – and it hadn't just been the agents in the house. It had been everyone, including outside security, and it had been very deliberate, too.

 _Click. Cl-_

Alex felt the sharp sting of a perfectly aimed peanut hitting his forehead. Jack, working on her own homework across from him, lowered her hand.

"What -"

"If you don't stop fidgeting with that pen," Jack said, very calmly, "I'll personally make sure the only snacks that'll ever appear in your room again are carrot sticks, celery, and the blandest, most boring bottled water I can find. Don't think I won't."

Alex paused. Glanced down at the pen in his hand and his thumb pressing down on the top of it. Oh. He let go. Carefully. Put the pen aside and picked up a pencil instead, since that would at least make for quieter fidgeting.

Jack would go through with that threat. Yassen would probably even help her.

"… Sorry."

Alex tried to focus on the screen again but he had already lost track of where he had been in the mess of notes. Maybe he should start over. Maybe it was just a lost cause.

"He doesn't hate you."

Alex looked up and met Jack's eyes, warm and understanding.

 _You don't know that_ , Alex didn't say though he wanted to. The fact that Jack had been willing to accept him despite everything was still a small wonder to him, something that had made him pause more than once when the sheer enormity of what she had done for him hit again, but that was _Jack_ and he had been very, very lucky.

"You wouldn't hate him for it, if your situations were switched."

No, he wouldn't, but that didn't rule out a bunch of other options. Tom would probably listen to him, out of fear if nothing else – and that thought left a horrible taste in Alex's mouth – but that didn't mean Tom would take it well. Not when Alex was there in person and he wasn't just some weird, abstract idea that happened to share a name with his best friend from school.

Meeting Tom in person had been a lot easier when said meeting had still been weeks away.

Alex was tempted to call it off. Dr Three and Yassen might even prefer if he did. Stubbornness and hope made him take a slow, steadying breath and get back to work.

Alex had to know. He would always wonder otherwise. One way or another, Alex needed closure.

* * *

A week and a half after the meeting with Jerry, Alex was back in Naples. A bright, sunny early morning, completely at odds with the gnawing worry in his chest. In another few hours, Tom would arrive in that very same airport and Alex was torn between dread and nervous anticipation.

Adams didn't seem worried. Then again, Adams wasn't about to meet his maybe former best friend for the first time in nearly two years and explain why he had taken up a career as a killer. Alex kind of doubted Adams was willing to show up to any kind of reunion. Not his high school one and definitely not any military ones considering he was a wanted man in the US. And Shale … if he had any personal connections that actually mattered left outside of SCORPIA, they weren't mentioned in his file.

Jean and one of his men met them outside of the airport with two cars. Armoured, sure, but they looked local enough to pass unnoticed. There was something to be said for outsourcing the logistics of that sort of thing to someone much more experienced than Alex himself.

"There is a small MI6 surveillance team here," Jean told them as they left the airport behind. "Three people, acceptable at their job but not some of MI6's best. Just good enough to keep an eye on one teenager for a weekend."

MI6 had lost most of their interest in Tom, then. Enough surveillance to still keep track of him but not nearly enough if they genuinely expected anything to happen. Maybe it was even a training exercise for those agents. Alex supposed that was the one good thing about Jack's kidnapping. Since Tom hadn't been targeted, he would be a lot less interesting to Blunt now. Still a potential pawn in the game but nowhere near as useful or valuable as Jack.

"Will they be a problem?" He doubted it but he had to ask.

Jean's smile was small and sharp. "Hardly. They expect a teenage boy and his older brother. They will see what they expect to see. If nothing looks wrong, they won't suspect a thing. The younger Harris won't be told in advance and the older one is good enough that he won't give anything away."

Spring the surprise on a completely unprepared Tom, then. Alex took a slow breath. It made sense and he knew it – if Tom looked nervous, looked off in any way, that surveillance team would spot it – but it didn't make it any easier to face that reunion. How would he himself have reacted to a surprise like that? He had no idea, much less how Tom would handle it.

They went over security and contingency plans one last time over a late breakfast. Nobody expected trouble but it was just common sense. Alex forced himself to actually eat. He hadn't had anything on the flight and his appetite hadn't improved much. It was all that he could do to force himself to pay attention to the conversation and not go over a dozen different ways the meeting could go wrong.

Tom would arrive in less than two hours. For the first time since London, they would be in the same country, the same _city,_ at the same time.

Tom's file said he was doing good. A lot better than Alex had feared given Tom's parents and MI6 and everything. Did he have any right to mess that up? Was it really that dangerous to let him stay in Britain and just arrange for security there? Maybe -

"You're doing the right thing," Adams said quietly. Alex obviously hadn't been as good at hiding his emotions as he should have been. "Maybe it'll go tits up, maybe not, but the kid's not going to be any safer if you keep him in the dark about shit. He'll be a target. Maybe he'll hate you but at least he'll be alive to do that and that has to count for something."

Alex's own words to Yassen so long ago in Nice drifted back to him, unwanted.

 _I hate you._

 _But you are alive to do so._

Alex understood a lot better these days than he had a year ago. He hoped it would go well, that Jack would be right, but Tom alive and safe – angry and disappointed and spiteful but _alive_ _and safe_ – would be infinitely better than the risk to him if Blunt or one of Alex's other enemies got to him.

Alex wasn't sure what to say to that. Instead he just nodded.

They met at a local restaurant. A little worn down but with decent food at decent prices according to Jerry and, more importantly, with access to several private meeting rooms behind the kitchen that weren't common knowledge. They were well-hidden and available only through word of mouth, and the people who used them weren't the types that were keen to have a convenient arrangement like that ruined by spreading it around too much.

There was nothing on the table but the water they had brought along themselves. Alex had caught a glimpse of home-made fruit juice in the kitchen but had known better than to ask. A year ago he probably would have. Orion had been a target but mainly on assignments. Alex Rider as Yassen's second in command, though … he would never be able to really just sit down somewhere for food on a whim again. The risk that someone was going to poison him or try to get to him some other way was small but real.

" _They're here."_

Alex had almost managed to distract himself a little. Shale's voice in his earpiece brought the anxiety right back.

Adams patted his shoulder. "We'll wait outside. Holler when you need us."

Alex wanted to stop him. Wanted some sort of support. Knew just as well that this sort of thing was best done without an audience. Adams and Jean left and Alex was alone. With people right outside in the hallway, sure, but alone in the room that all of a sudden seemed very big and empty for something that was really rather small.

Should he stand? Sit? Alex had no idea. He hovered indecisively by the table. Felt his nervousness as a roiling ball of tense, restless energy.

And then, with the sound of footsteps, the decision was taken out of his hands. Voices, slightly muted by the hallway and hidden by the sounds from the kitchen until then.

He caught a glimpse of Jerry. Then Tom stepped into the room and just – stopped.

A dozen emotions crossed his face in an instant. Surprise was the strongest; surprise and uncertainty and confusion and relief, and Alex took a deep breath.

"We would have warned you but you're under surveillance. We couldn't let anyone catch on."

His first words to Tom in almost two years were an apology. Somehow it seemed fitting.

Tom took another few steps inside the room. The door was shut quietly behind him. For a moment they just stood there, Tom watching Alex as Alex watched him in turn. He had the photos from Tom's file but it was different to see it for himself. Tom had grown and filled out a little. Still short – he would never be a tall man – but strong. Lean. His love for sports showed.

Alex wondered what Tom saw in turn. Anonymous clothes, the shirt made of ballistic fabric but tailored to look like a nice but average piece of clothing. He was taller and stronger, and he carried himself very differently these days. He deliberately kept both hands in plain sight, too. He wasn't sure if Tom would know why or even notice but it seemed like the proper thing to do. Alex was a killer but there and then he was as harmless as he would ever be.

"… They'll probably give me up as a lost cause eventually," Tom said. Careful and guarded but he didn't look like he was about to turn around and leave just yet.

"They've already started," Alex offered. "It's a team of three. Just enough to keep track of you for the weekend but not enough if anything happened."

"That's …" Tom trailed off and seemed to look for the right thing to say before he continued, "… good to know."

Silence. Heavy and uncomfortable. Alex wasn't sure what to say. Tom obviously wasn't, either. He didn't want to say the wrong thing. He didn't want to push. He wasn't sure where to even start.

Tom seemed to recover before Alex did. "You know, you never call, you never write, you missed great-aunt Edith's birthday …"

Alex's lips twitched slightly, a small bit of hope uncurling in his chest. "You don't have a great-aunt Edith."

"I could have," Tom said, a little mulishly. "You've been AWOL for almost two years. Maybe my mum remarried. Or my dad. For all you know, I could have several great-aunt Ediths by now."

"Vindictive old ladies that make you come over for tea every other Sunday, just because they know you want to sleep in?" Alex guessed.

" _Exactly._ They have that horrible china, too. The stuff where you'll never hear the end of it if you break a cup. And they only get the biscuits they know you don't like, just to make you sit there and be polite while they complain about young people these days and make snide little comments about my grades and future prospects. And wonder when I'll find a nice girlfriend, not that they have much hope for that, but their proper great nephew is such a nice, successful Eton boy and _he_ always calls, and why can't I be more like him?"

"Right," Alex agreed. "Those."

Tom swallowed. Seemed to make up his mind.

"… I missed you." He almost stumbled over the words. Then, before Alex could answer, he continued. "You _left._ "

Tom took a shuddering breath. Tired. Fragile. Vulnerable. It was so far from the Tom that Alex had known back in London that the guilt came instantly and with a force that almost physically hurt. Tom had been cheerful and easy-going, even when things had been really bad at home. Now – now he wasn't, and that was Alex's fault.

"You wrote a note, more or less said we'd never meet again, and then you _left_."

The only thing Alex could do at the time, not that it made him feel any better. He didn't blame Tom. He didn't think he would have handled it much better if the roles bad been switched.

"I know. I'm sorry."

" _Sorry._ " Tom took another deep breath. "Jack was there. She helped make sense of it."

And then she left, too. Alex didn't need to hear that out loud. It had been bad enough before Jack's kidnapping. On unsecured phones, with both of them under surveillance, there wouldn't have been much they could have talked about. Emails wouldn't have been safe, phones wouldn't have been, letters were hopeless, but it had still been someone to talk to. And then Jack had been kidnapped and Tom would have had no one left to talk to. Jerry was in Italy. His parents … the less said about them, the better. And Alex had been his closest friend, the person who should have been there.

"I'm sorry," Alex repeated. Softer. More tired. "I'm … sorry."

He didn't know what else to say. Couldn't even begin to find the words to explain everything that had happened to drive him to a point where that sort of thing had been his only choice left.

"She told me stuff," Tom continued. "Kept me up to date. You know MI6 didn't. That woman, Jones, kept dismissing me, and Blunt – he's one of those people who'll turn out to have some dead hitchhiker buried under his house."

Well, to be fair, he would probably arrange for the body to be disposed of by MI6, but Alex didn't think it was the right time to point that out.

"She told me about your boss and your new – job." There was a slight stumble as Tom looked for the right word but none of the judgement that Alex had expected and that both made him feel a little hopeful and all the more guilty. "That wasn't really on the list of career options at Brookland."

 _Assassin. Operative._ _Terrorist._ _Child soldier._

"No," Alex admitted. "It really wasn't."

Silence again.

"… How was terrorist-school?" Tom blurted out and looked like the question surprised him as much as it surprised Alex.

Alex kept back the hysterical laughter that threatened to bubble out, because that was just so very _Tom,_ and he tried to find a suitable response instead.

"Really, really weird. I … just. Really weird," he admitted.

Hard work, endless days, one week blending into the next, one class after another and _no room for failure, none at all_ , but that wasn't what he was about to tell Tom. He probably suspected, anyway.

Tom stayed silent. Watched Alex for long seconds. "I can't imagine you just decided to be social all of a sudden, not after this long. It's the stuff with Jack, isn't it?"

"She was kidnapped to target me. I thought we would have longer before that became a risk. I was wrong. I want to make sure that doesn't happen again." The honest truth. Tom deserved it. "Your security, yours and Jack's, it was always something I wanted to do something about when I got to a point where I actually could, but I didn't do it fast enough."

 _I'm sorry for that, too._

Tom seemed to get it. He didn't ask about it, at least. "So, what's the plan, then? I know you have one."

Alex took a deep breath. "I'm getting you out of England, if you're on board with that."

"What, to Italy? I'm still in school."

That wasn't exactly a no. Alex shook his head. "To a boarding school in Switzerland. Saint Verena International School. They have a strong focus on sports and their main language at the school is English. Some of our people will be around for security, but you probably won't see them. My employers will pay for everything – tuition, fees, travel, security, whatever you need."

"That sounds expensive." Tom's expression was carefully neutral.

"Not by Swiss standards," Alex replied. "It's not one of the big, famous ones. By British standards, sure. For a Swiss boarding school of its calibre, it's pretty average. I tried to find a normal one. Not somewhere full of the rich and famous and with a private helipad and racetrack and everything."

Not spoken out loud was the fact that if Alex had decided on a school like that, SCORPIA would have paid for that as well. Tom seemed to get that, too.

"And no strings attached." The words were dubious even if Tom's voice wasn't quite. "A team of three people got sent to keep an eye on me for the weekend and that apparently means MI6 is losing interest in me because they won't be able to actually do something if anything happens. If that's the case, your _employers_ will have to pay for a lot of people to hang around that boarding school to be effective security."

Maybe Tom got lousy grades but that didn't mean he was stupid, not by a long shot, and part of Alex felt both proud and relieved and guilty. Tom took nothing at face value any more. It would help keep him alive but it was also a direct result of MI6's attention.

 _The upfront approach._ That was what Jean had recommended.

"I'm valuable to my employers," Alex said bluntly. "This is a minor expense to them. If yours and Jack's security depends on how valuable I am, I'll work that much harder to make sure they don't lose the incentive to pay for it."

Tom blinked. He looked a little startled, maybe by Alex's brutal honesty. Especially after so many months of dealing with MI6. "That's cold."

"Tom, I'm the second in command to one of the world's best assassins," Alex said dryly. "The same man who got promoted to the executive board of the biggest freelance terrorist organisation in the world and proceeded to kill most of his colleagues because they were _in the way of his retirement plans_."

Not for money, not for influence, but because they had become an inconvenience. Yassen Gregorovich was a practical man.

"… Point." Tom's voice was steady. Alex was a little proud of him. "And these are the people I'm getting involved with if I agree? These are the people _Jack_ is involved with? You're not selling it all that well."

Which was a good point, too. Alex couldn't even guarantee Tom would never have to deal with someone like Yassen or Dr Three, because if either one took an interest, there would be nothing Alex could do. Events with Jack had proven that just fine. Maybe Tom didn't know the details about Jack but he knew enough.

"I can arrange for security in London, too, but it'll be more difficult since it's right under Blunt's nose and it'll put you in more danger if anyone finds out."

"And if I say no?" Tom rarely ever bothered to hide his emotions – and when he did, he wasn't all that good at it – but right now Alex could get nothing from him. "If I decide I'll manage on my own and take my chances, then what?"

Alex wanted to say he would arrange for security, anyway. That someone would still be there in case something happened. He didn't, though. Alex Rider hadn't been given a lot of choices since Ian had died and most of them had been bad ones. Maybe turning down security would be a bad choice, maybe it would put Tom in a lot of danger, but it was a choice and that was more than Alex himself usually got. If that was Tom's decision -

"- Then I'll respect that," Alex said quietly. "If you'll listen to the risks and let me give you a number to call if you change your mind, I'll respect that."

Tom gave him a considering look. "It would be pretty dumb, though."

Between SCORPIA and Alex's enemies? Definitely. Not that taking Alex's offer wasn't risky but at least it came with some protection. Without it, Tom would be entirely on his own.

"It would," Alex agreed. "But I wouldn't blame you."

Tom took a slow breath.

"… All right. I'm in."

 _But don't ever do this again,_ he didn't say. Alex still got it just fine.

He let out a slow breath. Felt weeks of worry and tension finally ease up, just a little. "Thank you."

 _I won't._

Tom nodded. Seemed to get the underlying message, too. "Right. Now tell me what kind of James Bond level weirdness I'm about to get involved with, and it better be good. I could be at home in rainy London and listen to mum complain about dad. I'm missing out on a lot to be here, Rider."

Alex didn't know what he had done to deserve someone like Tom in his life but he would do his damn best to make sure Tom would never regret that.

… Except for the academic requirements at the school. Alex looked forward to the outraged email about that one.

Feeling lighter and more relieved than he had in months, Alex settled down for a long day.

* * *

A/N: In case of delays, I'll update my profile :) I try to keep to the every-two-weeks schedule but sometimes baby happens.

chip-monkey: Yassen and Dr Three already settled that one - a nice, quiet retirement for the good doctor with SCORPIA's continued funding, protection, and backing, no questions asked. The doctor feels it was a rather fair agreement ;) And no more snippets of Yassen's past anytime soon, I'm afraid.

Next: Some reunions are just more awkward than others.


	80. The World is Not Enough

Alex spent the afternoon in Naples just … catching up with Tom. There were things he couldn't share, things he didn't _want_ to share, but they still had a lot to talk about. About Alex's life since they had last seen each other, about Tom's life, about stupid little inside jokes that Alex hadn't even realised he had missed. He dragged out their departure for as long as he could and it was well past midnight by the time he was back in his bed at Malagosto. He would be a wreck in the morning but couldn't bring himself to regret a single moment of it.

Seeing Tom again had been a relief, and having security settled was a weight off of his shoulders. He wouldn't relax completely until Tom was safely in Switzerland, well away from MI6, but it was a start.

It was one item less on an endless list of to-dos. The next big one was the CIA. Alex had less than a week before that meeting, but at least he could actually focus on that one now.

Alex found himself in Dr Javadi's domain the day after Naples. It wasn't a check-up, either, because Jack had been summoned right there with him.

He knew it was going to be a bad day the second he spotted a hypodermic needle in a small, transparent box. A decently large needle, too. Large enough, in fact, that it looked suspicious similar to the one Kurst had used for his tracker.

"… That looks nasty," Jack said when she spotted where Alex's attention had drifted to.

"It is less painful than it looks." Dr Javadi did not sound particularly sympathetic. "It's a safe, convenient way to handle a sufficiently small implant. Mr Rider here is familiar with it already."

Same one as Kurst's, then.

Alex had the horrible suspicion that the needle was meant for him. He had the equally horrible suspicion that without the fear and adrenaline that had ruled his meeting with Kurst, that needle would hurt a lot more.

"Is it the same sort of tracker, too?" he asked. He had only caught a brief glimpse of the tracker when Dr Three had removed it. With the thing ready to be injected, he couldn't see this one at all.

"A slightly more advanced one," the doctor replied. "That was merely a record of your movements. This one allows us to track your location at any given time."

That triggered a memory somewhere deep in his mind. Miami, and the way Adams had examined the implant. He had mentioned it was smaller than usual. That it had lacked the transmitter. He supposed this one was the normal version.

Jack looked a little conflicted. Probably at the 'track his location' part. On one hand it allowed them to know where he was if he got into trouble. On the other, they could find him anytime, anywhere they wanted to.

"Your shirt, Mr Rider."

Alex bit back a sigh and unbuttoned his shirt. He still wasn't sure why Jack was there – it certainly wasn't because they cared about her opinion – but that became obvious a moment later.

"Ms Starbright."

Jack hesitated but moved around Alex to join Javadi behind him. A steady hand found the old implant site in his neck with unerring accuracy. The tiny scar was long gone but Alex supposed it didn't matter to someone who had his medical file.

"Mr Rider's original implant was injected here," Javadi said. That Alex should stay still was an unspoken order. "There were multiple reasons for that. Name one."

She seemed to take it for granted that Jack knew about that implant. She wasn't wrong, either. Alex supposed it was pretty obvious he had shared most things with Jack. Those he could, anyway.

Alex couldn't see Jack's expression but he could imagine she looked pretty unhappy. She knew exactly why he had been given that tracker in the first place. "It's a hard spot to see and reach on your own. If you want a tracker for insurance, you want to be sure it's in as difficult of a place for the subject to get to as possible. If Alex wanted it removed, he would need help to do it or risk a pretty nasty cut if he tried on his own."

Because like it or not, Jack had sat through Malagosto's classes and that showed now. The Jack who had raised him for seven years would not have known what to answer. This Jack, with a month of classes behind her already, had started to learn and adapt to a very different mindset.

Alex tried to ignore the surge of guilt and failed miserably.

"Inconvenience on the part of Mr Rider," Javadi agreed. "It is also a location that is not frequently targeted and one that doesn't encourage any _accidental_ injuries that might have conveniently destroyed the tracker."

The hand moved to the small of his back and found the cut from the second, larger implant. That scar was faded but still visible and Javadi traced it with strong, steady fingers. "This is from a different, larger kind of implant. Broad but flat, it needed a large, reasonably flat area to accommodate it. It was surgically implanted and the cut disguised to look like a knife wound."

It sounded cold and clinical when she put it that way. Alex couldn't argue, either. It had been the same cold, clinical analysis Yassen had done when he had decided on that approach to get the information they needed from Ramos' home.

Jack was silent. Alex could vividly imagine her expression.

"This tracker is larger than the original one Mr Rider carried," Javadi continued. "The same width but somewhat longer. Choose a suitable location for it."

And there it was. It could have been just a brief lesson but Alex had learned that lessons at Malagosto always came with tests.

Jack was silent. Alex could only imagine what went through her mind. It was a fairly harmless question – Alex could think of at least half a dozen perfectly safe spots to inject that thing – but mentally it was … different. It wasn't the question itself but more the casual way Javadi had turned the whole thing into an on-the-spot lesson with Alex as the test subject.

It would have to be somewhere that wouldn't bother him in any way, somewhere decently likely not to get injured since the tracker was small and probably fragile because of its size, and preferably somewhere hard to spot in case he got captured.

Between his shoulder blades was an option again. Alex knew Jack wouldn't pick it. Not with the reminder of Kurst.

"… Lower back," Jack finally said. "Near the spine."

Because if he got injured badly enough to take the tracker out in that place, he would have bigger things to worry about. Even Jack couldn't sit through a month of Malagosto's classes and not pick up some of that ruthless approach to the world.

Alex felt the cold wetness of a disinfectant wipe a moment later.

"Stay still." Javadi didn't need to explain that order. Alex barely even dared breathe. He did not want to find out what would happen if that needle went in wrong.

The seconds dragged on. Alex heard the whisper of movement. Then the sudden, sharp pain in his lower back, just an instant before it faded to a dull, stinging throb. Alex didn't wince but he really wanted to. Anticipation really hadn't made it any easier. The adrenaline and fear from his meeting with Kurst had obviously worked wonders in the painkiller department.

Alex put his shirt back on. Javadi handed him a watch to go with it; a bit of a heavy, complicated looking thing. It had probably been expensive. Alex slipped it on without argument.

"A stronger, secondary tracker," she explained. "Both will be inactive until the day of the meeting."

It went without saying that if he got captured, any guard worth their salary would remove that watch first thing. It didn't quite look like his style, either. It was too big and expensive for a teenager. But then, Gordon Ross didn't particularly care much for gadgets of any sort. A watch would work well for most people. Certainly for an adult. Not for a sixteen-year-old.

Alex assumed it would serve as a decoy more than anything. Any attacker would almost expect someone of Alex's rank to be tracked somehow. Maybe they would find the watch and not look for anything else. It would also be a good reminder to Jack just why someone more skilled at gadgets would be so very useful. With something more suitable for someone Alex's age, maybe he wouldn't need to have a tracker like that injected on a semi-regular basis.

Alex's cover in Singapore had worn a watch; an expensive one, too. His cover in Singapore had also been a bit of an upper class twat.

Alex waited until they had left the small clinic before his hand drifted to his back. The dull ache was still there but had faded a little. The spot was tender to the touch, a bit worse than the original one he had been given had been. That one had been smaller, too.

Jack spotted the movement but didn't say anything. Her expression said it all. Maybe that tracker would help keep Alex safe and get him back in case of trouble, maybe the original one had saved his life, but it didn't change the fact that no one had ever once asked for his opinion about it, and Jack had spotted that, too.

Alex didn't know if it had been done by order of Yassen or Dr Three. He supposed it didn't matter. He had a little less than four years left of his contract. Yassen's second in command or not, he still didn't get a say. Yassen had approve the procedure, it wouldn't have been allowed otherwise, but that was all Alex knew.

 _Property of SCORPIA._ Jack got that part just fine.

* * *

Alex got the full report on security three days before the meeting. Yassen didn't get to hear the running commentary – Alex didn't think he would appreciate fifteen emails that basically boiled down to 'isn't this a bit overkill?' - but he did get to listen to Alex that evening.

"This is a little … much, isn't it?" Alex asked a little cautiously.

Yassen glanced at the report. He looked supremely unmoved by Alex's doubts. "What part?"

 _All of it,_ Alex didn't say.

"Three security teams? B7 armour for a car I'll need for five hours at the most?" And the snipers, the two trackers he carried, the thin and hideously expensive bulletproof vest – the list went on. "There wasn't even half of this last time I met Byrne."

"I think," Yassen murmured, "that you know why."

Because Alex was valuable now. Because he might have been a promising operative last time but not valuable enough for that kind of extensive – and expensive – security. He had also been less of a target. The messenger, nothing more. They had done their best to minimise the risks, and the CIA had no real wish to cause trouble, either, but Alex had been expendable. Now, he was Yassen Gregorovich's second in command and a genuine threat. That mattered.

Was this how he would always travel in the future on official business? He had been spoiled by the two visits to Naples, perfectly anonymous and with very little security. How much worse would it be if he took over one day?

Dr Three had decided to send him because Joe Byrne apparently had a soft spot for him. Had it been meant as a lesson, too? A reminder of just how far some people might go to target him? How much he would have to plan for? Yassen hadn't travelled with that much security. Then again, Yassen could pass for a perfectly ordinary person, and Alex hadn't travelled with him on real official business since his promotion. No one had known they had been in Paris, the assignment in the Congo had been a long way from anyone who might want to target Yassen, and the few days in Abu Dhabi before Alex returned to Malagosto had been under the cover of anonymity, too. Alex would be on official SCORPIA business in Johannesburg and a lot of people would know it. Security had to match that.

Alex stared at the report and felt vaguely claustrophobic. How had Kurst lived with that kind of security around him at all times? How had Yu? Alex wanted to do something stupid just to prove he could; run off to spend a day lounging around on the _Fer de Lance_ or eat ice cream with Jack in Dubai and not have any number of people watch his every move.

He wouldn't, but he was tempted.

"There is no way out, is there?" Alex finally asked and trusted Yassen would pick up on all the meanings beneath the words.

Yassen was silent for several seconds. "You have been a target since you were fourteen," he replied. "MI6 merely failed to do anything to protect you. I had orders to kill you after Sayle. I knew your address, your school, the people around you. Had the rate of assignments you were sent on continued, you would likely have been dead by the age of sixteen. If not through such an assignment, then at the hands of one of the numerous enemies you would have made. MI6 should have provided adequate security and anonymity. They failed at even the most basic level of protection. You will be more of a target now but you have the full backing of SCORPIA to provide security to match that threat level."

His _school._

The words sent a chill down Alex's spine. He didn't know why he was surprised. He had just … never thought about it. Of course Yassen had known. Alex had always figured that the people at risk were those closest to him. Jack and Tom. But with people like Sayle, who had been willing to kill every single child in England, and Grief's plans to twist the world to his racist views … a school wouldn't have mattered against someone with those kinds of plans. If Alex had been a threat and the easiest way to get to him had been by targeting his school …

And MI6 had done nothing. Just sent him back to Brookland with a half-hearted cover for his absence and put several hundred other kids at risk in the process.

Had Blunt figured the anonymity would have been enough? That no one would track Alex down? Had it been a calculated risk, or had he already decided to use the inevitable attack to have Alex brought firmly under control by making it somehow Alex's own fault?

"They -" Alex cut himself off, unable to find the right words.

"You do not control an intelligence agency without ruthlessness and a willingness to make unpleasant sacrifices, for all that Alan Blunt would not be the one to pay the required price." Yassen's lips twisted slightly in a hard smile. "To use the cliché – you saved the world, Alex. Repeatedly. You were an exceptionally valuable operative for your luck alone, but you were an unwilling one, too. What would you have done, should your school have been targeted? Should a number of your friends and classmates have been killed by one of your enemies in retaliation for an assignment?"

Maybe that would have been a hazy sort of abstract idea once. Now, Alex had seen too many dead people, killed too many, and he could vividly imagine the scene. The nausea followed right along.

"Blamed Blunt and MI6," Alex said immediately.

"And then?"

"… Gone after whoever had done it," Alex admitted quietly. For revenge. To make sure they wouldn't target anyone else. And if he had actually lost Tom or Jack …

The bile settled in the back of his mouth. That sort of what-if was too easy to imagine. Would he even have been able to tell good intel from bad? It would have been very easy for Blunt to have nudged that desire for revenge in whatever direction worked best for MI6. Frame some inconvenient enemy or another as part of the attack. Alex wouldn't have questioned it. Not if he had been sure he was on the right track. Not if his entire focus had been revenge.

"You would have been removed from normal life by Blunt as a risk to everyone around you, and you would have agreed because you could not bear the guilt if more died for your refusal. They would have given some excuse or another for the lack of security surrounding your school and you would have accepted it, because you would have had nowhere else to go and not enough knowledge to tell the truth from lies. Perhaps MI6 would have preferred the less bloody approach and simply done their best to destroy any chance you had for a normal life, but they would have no qualms about using collateral damage as leverage should the opportunity arise."

Alex was silent. How had they gone from discussing his security arrangements to the hypothetical destruction of his school? He wasn't even sure.

"Your security for the meeting is adequate," Yassen stated, pure business again. "The board deemed the risk to you last time acceptable. This is not the case now. It will be an educational experience for Sagitta and an exercise in diplomacy and networking for you."

"… They didn't cover that at Malagosto," Alex pointed out. He doubted interrogation or torture was all that useful in diplomacy or networking, though Dr Three's patient mix of terror and manipulation to control the world around him might just be.

"You learn best through experience," Yassen said, extremely unhelpful. "I suggest you learn fast."

And that was amusement. Faint, faint amusement, so slight Alex almost missed it. Yassen _enjoyed_ it, the bastard.

"I hate you."

This time the amusement was clear. "I'm quite aware."

Alex didn't sigh. Barely. Just returned to the report and continued reading.

* * *

The meeting with the CIA took place in Johannesburg. Maybe Joe Byrne didn't like Russia in early spring any more than Alex did. Maybe they didn't like to repeat meeting places, which would rule out Riyadh. Whatever the reason, Alex didn't mind. It was his first visit to South Africa. It was on business, sure, but it was still somewhere new and interesting, and the weather was nice as well.

He had Sagitta with him as primary security. Well, most of the team, anyway. Marcus was along because no one believed he would be willing to stay behind but he had strict instructions to do absolutely nothing but be on surveillance duty. There were three security teams, too. Not Jean's, as they were busy with Tom's situation, but recommended by him.

Security had arrived well in advance to set everything up. Alex was sure the CIA had done the same. Alex himself didn't arrive until the day before. The official reason was that he was an important person with better things to spend his time on. Alex was sure that the unofficial reason was that it was much easier to handle any security issues when they didn't have to babysit their principal at the same time.

Even though Alex had memorised the report, he was still met with a flurry of information. He tried to keep up with it and remember everything but the combination of anxiety, information overload, and plain, simple nervousness made it hard to.

"- under surveillance until the end of the meeting," Adams said even as they left the airport.

What if he messed up? What did Yassen and Dr Three actually expect him to accomplish?

"- hotel is used to hosting high-level business meetings and guests with unusual security demands," Gale briefed him in the car, a heavily-armoured Toyota Land Cruiser. Gale herself, tall, elegant, and dressed in an expensive business suit, gave all the appearance of a successful career woman rather than one of Malagosto's star students.

Was this all just a test? He wouldn't even be surprised. Dr Three preferred to let Alex work things out on his own, and Yassen … if he felt that Alex would learn best by being thrown into the deep end of things, that's what he would do.

"- in place, as well as multiple escape routes," Ivey picked up when they got to the hotel.

It was a staggering amount of security for a single meeting. For less than two days in Johannesburg on official SCORPIA business. His future, Alex realised. When he couldn't travel anonymously, when Yassen's plans for him became known, when he became an exceptionally valuable target – this would be his future. In a year, or two, or five, this would be second nature to him. In a decade, he probably wouldn't even remember what it was like to travel and not have a small retinue with him. He would adapt. That was what Yassen and Dr Three counted on, at least.

All of a sudden, it all felt impossibly overwhelming. Like it had all caught up with him in an instant.

Alex took a shuddering breath. Adams paused in the middle of his discussion with Gale and glanced over. Aware of Alex's every move. Someone always was, Alex realised with a barely suppressed shudder. If not Yassen, or Sagitta, or Dr Three, then everyone else around him. Someone was always watching, always analysing.

"Boss?"

Alex didn't answer but took another slow, shuddering breath. He could feel the walls close in on him and the air felt too heavy to breathe. He only caught a glimpse of Adams' pointed look at everyone else in the room but did notice when they left, leaving only Adams behind.

Someone was always watching but at least some of those watchers were more benign than others.

"Just – everything," Alex said and tried to pack a whole conversation into that one word. He must have succeeded because Adams' expression turned understanding and a little sympathetic.

"It'll get easier, I think. Just have to get used to it, right? You'll learn. The learning curve is a bitch, though."

And that pretty much described everything in Alex's life since Ian had died. His opinion on that was probably obvious, too, because Alex didn't bother to hide his emotions.

Adams dug a slightly squished candy bar out of one of his pockets and threw it across the table. Alex caught it easily.

"Sit down. Relax. Breathe. Stare at the wall or something if you need to," the man said. "Anyone asks, we discussed sensitive information or something."

Alex's lips twitched slightly. "'Or something'?"

Adams shrugged. "You think anyone's going to ask Yassen Gregorovich's second in command for details about that sort of thing? Take a break. You're not going to be any good to anyone if you can't even think straight."

Point. Alex stared at the candy bar. Settled down on the floor to unwrap it. Somehow the half-melted mess of chocolate and caramel just tasted that much better for it.

* * *

Like in Riyadh, the meeting took place at a high-end hotel. Unlike in Riyadh, both Alex and Byrne arrived with security. Byrne's companion looked like a perfectly anonymous assistant, all bland clothes and absolutely unremarkable. Shale, Alex's bodyguard of sorts for the meeting, didn't even bother to try for that sort of disguise. Whoever Byrne's bodyguard was, surveillance would be able to identify him if he was a known agent. Alex didn't doubt it wouldn't take the CIA much longer to get a positive ID on Shale.

Alex had spent the evening before buried in information and that morning trying to make sense of it all. He still didn't feel ready but at least a night of sleep had helped.

"Alex Rider," Byrne greeted him, and for a moment Alex was back in Riyadh, almost a year prior.

Byrne had used his name, not _Orion_. That meant something. The man was too experienced to do anything at random.

"Deputy Director Byrne," Alex said, echoing the words from their last meeting.

Maybe Byrne remembered, too. Alex thought he saw a flicker of something in the man's expression that he couldn't quite identify. It hadn't been surprise, at least. Byrne had known that Alex would be SCORPIA's representative.

For a moment it was silent as they both just watched the other. Alex wondered what he saw. It had been almost a year. Alex was taller. Older and closer to an adult in appearance than he had been after Miami. Still injured, though. Byrne looked much the same. A little older, a little more weary, but mostly the same.

"Gregorovich's right hand. You've moved up in the world," Byrne finally said. "I have to admit, I hadn't expected to see you again."

 _Not alive, at least_ , hung unspoken in the air. Byrne had pointed out the many reasons why Alex's remaining life was likely to be short and violent the last time they had met. And yet, here they were. Alex wondered just what Byrne thought about that. Alex was sixteen. He was also a trained killer and Yassen's second in command. There were lots of people out there who wouldn't think twice about ordering his assassination for any number of reasons. He wondered if Byrne was one of them.

Alex shrugged. "I've had a good mentor."

And a lot of luck on his side. He didn't mention that, though. Byrne frowned briefly. He probably didn't appreciate the reminder of just who Alex's mentor was.

"I was equally surprised," Byrne continued, "to be contacted about a meeting to _clear the air._ "

His tone of voice said exactly what he thought about that. Alex didn't wince, though he was tempted. Did Byrne care about those dead agents as more than lost assets? Probably. He seemed like the type to actually care about the people that worked for him, beyond just the job description.

"Your agents were unfortunately caught up in – unavoidable events," Alex said instead, very carefully and with his own instructions firmly in mind. "SCORPIA regrets that course of events. It will not happen again."

Not quite an apology but as close as SCORPIA would ever come to giving one. The CIA was potentially a very profitable client. They had been so before and could become so again. That made it worth the slight embarrassment that came with admitting that sort of thing. They had killed CIA agents before, a number of them, but that had been during operations. Not the sort of brutal executions Kurst had ordered.

Byrne had to know, too, because he didn't speak for long seconds and his expression was utterly unreadable. His voice when he finally spoke gave nothing away, either.

"Zeljan Kurst acted without the unanimous agreement of the executive board, then?"

There was something in the way he asked that Alex couldn't decipher. It was a harmless question, though, and easy to answer. "He did. The issue has been resolved."

Not that the dead body Dr Three had sent them hadn't already implied as much. Byrne gave Alex's visible condition a once-over with an experienced eye. "And does that resolution have anything to do with your chest injury? You're developing a bit of a habit when it comes to these meetings."

"It was a bullet through the lung," Alex said and wasn't actually surprised Byrne had spotted it. He felt fine for the most part but Byrne had decades of experience. He would know the signs of old injuries. He decided to go for honesty. _Smooth things over_ , that had been his main instruction. It seemed like a sensible approach to make it perfectly clear that Kurst carried the full blame. "Your agents and Jack weren't the only ones caught up in Kurst's plans."

"SCORPIA's internal politics were always deadly." Byrne's tone of voice was almost mild. It reminded Alex a little of Dr Three in his more dangerous moods.

"Kurst never let go of his grudge against my father."

Alex didn't go into details and didn't need to. The CIA didn't know all the details but they knew enough of John Rider's history with SCORPIA for Byrne to fill in the blanks himself. Jack was one of the last connections Alex had left to his past. The CIA had kept her under surveillance and later in a safe-house because of her connection to him. Byrne obviously knew exactly how valuable of a target she might be. They had probably just expected an outside enemy to target her, not one of SCORPIA's own.

"His file is one that most of the intelligence world will be pleased to close."

Byrne sounded so casual about it. _Close._ That was a euphemism for 'dead' that Alex hadn't heard before.

"I have a little pet theory you might be able to help me with," Byrne continued. He still sounded casual. This time Alex picked it up for the careful act it was. "In the interest of _clearing the air_ and all."

Alex didn't answer. Byrne didn't look like he had expected him to but continued right on.

"There has been quite the mess surrounding your executive board the past half a year or so. Kroll was a direct strike against the board. Yu's death was expected, he'd made a lot of enemies, but I've started to suspect that was an inside job as well. Duval was a nice little setup, blaming the French – got them pretty pissed about it, too – but my gut feeling tells me that Gregorovich had a hand in that. Mikato's assassination, too. My analysts like to play it safe, of course, but I think I'm right about those two. I think we can credit you with Kurst's removal – my guess is that he kidnapped Starbright for his little games and backed you into a corner in the process – and no one has seen even the shadow of Chase for several months. I would say his death has been all but confirmed as well. That leaves Gregorovich and Three, which is a bit of a change from the old kind of management."

Should he answer? Alex wasn't sure. Yassen and Dr Three had left it to his discretion. Was it dangerous information? Potentially damaging to SCORPIA? Alex didn't see why it would be. Neither Yassen nor Dr Three had made much secret of their takeover, either. Not once the last threats had been removed.

"Those would be the broad strokes," Alex agreed. He still wasn't sure where Byrne was going with it but he was sure he would find out.

Byrne nodded. "The thing is, your bosses have never really cared about cultivating good business relationships. Money speaks louder than words. Someone is showing you off, and if Gregorovich just wanted to make a point of how thoroughly he's got you trained, he would have made a better impact using you as his bodyguard instead of his representative. They showed you off in Riyadh, too, but you were just the messenger back then. My little theory, then: You're valuable to Gregorovich and he's got plans for you. SCORPIA is under new management. The old board made mistakes; big enough that a number of governments had started to take too much of an interest in the operations. You're new blood and you don't have a bad history with us, so they sent you to ease the transition and assure us that it's back to business as it used to be. Your bosses will take any advantage they can get. Whatever you might be now, you saved a lot of people, too. They know we'll at least listen to you."

Joe Byrne might be mostly stuck behind a desk now, might be years removed from actual field work, but he was still damn good at his job and Alex was reminded of that now. There was no question in Byrne's voice, no hesitation. He knew he was right.

Part of Alex was glad he didn't have to explain. The other was unsettled at just how well Byrne had managed to piece to background together. It felt – different this time. Byrne had said it himself. Alex had just been the messenger last time. He'd had a script to go with and the job could really have been carried out by anyone. Now he was there as SCORPIA's representative and would be treated very differently for it.

"… That's about the sum of it," Alex admitted.

Byrne nodded. Made a small gesture with his hand. "I figured as much. Speak your piece, Rider."

Easier said than done. Alex took his cue from Byrne's own words. "The old board made mistakes. Mr Gregorovich and Dr Three have put a stop to that. SCORPIA will return to what it used to be – just another part of the intelligence community. SCORPIA will no longer accept contracts for terrorist attacks. We will no longer deliberately target civilians. We will, however, still defend ourselves if attacked."

Byrne nodded again. "I can't help but notice that left out a lot of other illegal little operations."

"They haven't been a problem for you before," Alex said, just a little spitefully. "You were perfectly happy to hire us to get rid of unfortunate problems until the board got a little too ambitious. No one even looked in our direction until then."

" _Us,_ " Byrne murmured and there was something in the way he said it that Alex couldn't work out. Then he continued. "Kurst had eight of my agents executed; people who weren't even trained for undercover work."

 _And you obviously care **so** very much,_ Alex didn't say. Something about the words, about Byrne's tone of voice rubbed him wrong. Byrne cared about them as people, sure, but he also wasn't above using them to gain leverage if he could. They were dead, anyway, so might as well? Was that the logic? Byrne had put those agents at the safe-house as guards. He had _known_ Jack could be a target. And now he was trying to pull – what?

"They were obviously trained enough in _something_ to know how to use Jack as bait." Maybe Alex sounded a little more bitter than he had planned. He didn't bother to apologise. Maybe if the CIA had done better, Kurst's plan would have failed. Maybe if they hadn't tried to use her as bait in the first place, the whole thing could have been avoided.

Byrne didn't seem to mind. "It was business. Nothing personal. That's SCORPIA's approach, too, I believe."

Alex opened his mouth to snap something back. Closed it again the second before he could. Byrne was baiting him. _Testing_ him. Alex felt a slight chill. Joe Byrne had been ruthless enough to use a fourteen-year-old as a cover. Maybe he hadn't agreed with Alex's recruitment but in the face of necessity, he hadn't hesitated to make use of the asset that Alex had been. Byrne knew Yassen had plans for him. Byrne's impressions from when Alex had been fourteen wouldn't help much. Their meeting in Riyadh probably hadn't given them much to go on, either. Byrne wanted to know what they might have to deal with in the future.

Because whatever Byrne thought Yassen's plans for him were, the sort of security Alex had shown up with meant that he was important. Alex was a teenager. Treated like an adult, sure, but a _teenager_. A teenager who was the second in command to one of SCORPIA's two surviving board members and with access to all the resources and influence that implied. It hadn't really mattered before if Alex had been impulsive or vindictive or unstable. He had just been one more operative and there were others out there much worse than that. Someone impulsive and vindictive and unstable with access to all of SCORPIA's resources, though … Byrne had to be sure Alex was at least stable and predictable. He could become a dangerous enemy otherwise.

Alex let the silent stretch on for long seconds. Got his heartbeat back to something closer to normal. Breathed out slowly.

"… Did you get the answer you wanted?" he finally asked and didn't bother with an explanation.

Byrne's lips twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. "Well, I'm pretty sure you're not an immediate threat to the US or her interests. I'm not so sure about Blunt but that's not my problem."

Byrne leaned forward slightly and for the first time his body language seemed genuine to Alex. Slow, deliberate, and calculating, but genuine. "I don't agree with Gregorovich's actions, but that's not my problem, either. I think we can live with you. Let's talk business and see what we'll have to work with."

 _I think we can live with you._

Alex could vividly imagine just what might have happened if Byrne had decided that wasn't the case. He didn't let it show, though. He was sure Byrne knew it just fine, anyway. He just dug up his mental list of business points to cover and started talking.

* * *

It was almost two hours later by the time Alex left. Shale looked completely unaffected. Alex felt like he had been wrung dry and then gone three rounds in a tumble dryer. Most of it had been business talk, an old, dependable client making sure the new management would be something they could live with. Some had been a little more personal, the human beneath Byrne's job doing his best to get a read on Alex.

Alex didn't think he had done too badly. He would find out for sure soon enough, though. The whole thing had been recorded and he was sure Dr Three had kept an eye on everything even as it unfolded.

The security updates from Alex's earpiece were a welcome distraction; a low, constant murmur in his ear as they made their way to the parking basement where their transport waited.

Shale held the door to the Land Cruiser open and waited until Alex had settled before he followed.

"All right?" he asked and spoke for the first time since their arrival at the hotel. In the driver's seat, Ivey glanced at them in the rear-view mirror.

Was he? Alex considered the question. Relieved that it was over. Worried about Dr Three and Yassen's evaluations. Mentally exhausted. A bit hungry. All in all, he felt better than he had in days.

"… Yeah."

They drove straight to the airport. Alex settled down and watched Johannesburg pass by beyond the windows in comfortable silence. Cars, buildings, people. The stop-and-go of traffic. The deep, strong sound of the powerful engine. He almost closed his eyes and let the sound lull him to sleep. Almost.

Alex got little warning. Just Ivey's sudden tension; the way his hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. A glance in the rear-view mirror at the traffic behind them. The cars ahead; the people on the pavement.

Alex felt himself tense as well in response. "What's wrong?"

Ivey frowned. Glanced in the mirror again before he focused on traffic ahead of them. "I don't know. Something's -"

Ivey slammed on the brakes without warning. Four and a half ton of heavily armoured car came to an abrupt halt; jerked Alex sharply forward in his seat and forced the cars behind them to brake just as hard or take their chances with a collision -

\- And two cars ahead, the world exploded in red fire and an overwhelming roar.

* * *

Next: Alex will never complain about security measures again.


	81. Collateral Damage

The world turned into chaos.

The shock wave hit the Land Cruiser like a physical blow; slammed against metal and glass and lifted the entire car slightly from the ground. For a second there was nothing outside, just the impenetrable, dark wall of dirt and smoke and debris. Then it was past and the car settled with a groan, somewhat worse for wear – the windows were stained, one wing mirror completely gone – but _whole._

In the middle of the slow-motion of surging adrenaline, Alex stared at the destruction up ahead, the crater left behind, the heavy black smoke obscuring the road, and the vehicles that had been caught in the blast. He heard the sickening sound of collisions on the neighbouring lane as if through a fog, distant and muted as his full focus stayed on the wrecked cars ahead of them. If Ivey hadn't slammed on the brakes, they would have been one of them. The car was heavily armoured but Alex knew without being told that an explosion like that – it would have been pure chance whether they had walked away or not. And if they had, it would have been in pretty bad condition.

He had spent two weeks in Baghdad and never seen a single roadside bomb. Now there was one in Johannesburg and unless he was wrong, a roadside bomb a lot stronger than the regular kind.

Even Ivey and Shale seemed rattled. The tight grip on the steering wheel, hard enough to turn Ivey's fingers white. The soft expletive from Shale, defaulting to his native Spanish for just a few words.

There was a crater in the road. The bit of road that was left, anyway. How much explosives you needed for that kind of destruction, Alex didn't know, but it was a _lot._

Something hit the windows; slammed into the glass with a loud crack and left white indents in the heavy glass, and Alex startled. Sniper rounds. He didn't know the calibre but knew it had to be pretty high. If the car had been fitted with anything less than B7 armour, if it had been modified for anything less than war zones, if they had actually been caught up in that explosion and survived in a heavily damaged car -

\- Those bullets would have gone straight through.

If there had been any doubt about the target of that explosion, those bullets killed it.

Alex took a shuddering breath. Felt the world come back into focus. Horns blaring; screams and running people on the pavements; cars far behind them braking hard and already looking to get away because there was no way around the devastation up ahead. The explosion had engulfed both sides of the road and left only wreckage behind. Twisted, ruined cars and wrecked tarmac that reminded him more of Iraq than South Africa.

Ivey glanced behind them; Alex did the same. Their car had weathered the explosion mostly unharmed. The ones next to them or the row behind hadn't been as lucky. The explosion itself hadn't seriously damaged most of the cars but unlike the Land Cruiser, they had been moving. Several of them had collided; the sickening crashes Alex had heard through the haze. Several others had clear marks from shrapnel. Alex saw movement in some of them; someone reaching for the back seat, someone else supporting themselves against the steering wheel, the white of an airbag. Injuries, his mind supplied, some of them probably serious, and they had been the lucky ones.

How many cars had been caught up in that blast? Twenty? Thirty? Alex had no idea.

"We're boxed in," Ivey said. "It's going to be a clusterfuck."

Traffic wasn't the dense blanket of cars of rush hour but still not light and more kept coming from behind. It was already chaos. Their secondary car – backup, support, additional firepower in case of an attack – was stuck, the heavy Mercedes unscratched but trapped in the instant traffic jam well behind them. A minute ago, in motion on the road, that backup would have been less than thirty seconds away, completely anonymous to outside eyes but ready to act in an instant. Now they were as stuck as everyone else. There would be no help from that front anytime soon. Alex wasn't about to risk them to those sniper bullets out in the open.

"We're sitting ducks here." Shale's voice was tight in a way Alex hadn't heard before. How often had the man been on the other end of sniper rifles like that during his career? More than often enough to know exactly what kind of danger they were in. "Enough bullets and the glass will break."

" _Status?"_ a voice in Alex's ear asked. He recognised it as Adams. To his side, another two bullets hit the window and added to the pockmarks in the glass. Shale's expression tightened.

"In one piece," Ivey reported, "but not for much longer. We've got at least one sniper taking shots at us, maybe two. We're about fifty metres from the blast, I think it was a van by the construction site that went up; won't know for sure until we see the recordings. We'll have to go through. Road behind us won't be an option, the traffic's gone tits up already, and I want to avoid the median strip if we can. Clearance'll be an issue if I get it wrong."

They had picked the spot well, whoever their attackers were, Alex noted with a bit of the detached, clinical attention to detail that Yassen had hammered into him. Close to the hotel to cut down on the amount of different routes they could have picked. Not on the freeway – raised above ground and a potential death trap, sure, but also where they would expect an attack, and much harder to target as well. Expensive houses and heavy fences on one side, perfect for snipers, and a median strip that would have been _harmless_ if it hadn't been for the convenient construction work going on right where they had been forced to brake.

Alex would bet that when they looked into the paperwork for that bit of work, they would find it curiously missing.

A fifth bullet impacted. Then a sixth. Both stopped inches from Alex by bulletproof glass that was rapidly getting worn down. None of the bullet holes overlapped, Alex noticed as well, still oddly detached. Maybe they didn't have the best snipers on the job. Yassen could easily have done it. Maybe they expected that the bomb would have done the job. If it hadn't been for Ivey's instincts, it likely would have.

Alex took a deep breath. Realised belatedly that his hands were trembling.

Shale noticed his glance down, the way he watched his shaking fingers.

"Fight or flight," Shale told him quietly. "Right now it's got nowhere to go."

He was right. Normally Alex would have been able to _do_ something, no matter how useless, but right now he was trapped in a metal box, relying on Ivey to get them somewhere safe, and he could do _nothing._

The voices in his earpiece had continued through their short exchange.

" _\- blocked, secondary escape route -"_

" _\- emergency services are already on their way, ETA -"_

The Land Cruiser rumbled back to life. Alex didn't ask Ivey if he was sure about their course of action. Shale stayed silent and Adams clearly trusted it could be done. Alex would do the same, then. He knew there were ways to ram your way past a roadblock, specific spots to aim for to move a car and not just cause a collision. He hoped that Ivey was right and they had the room to do it in.

The road, smooth and even just two minutes prior, was wrecked at best and entirely missing in some places. The suspension took the worst of it but even then the car rattled as Ivey hit the speeder and aimed for a patch of slightly less heavy smoke.

They had size and weight on their side; four and a half ton of moving vehicle and the engine to back it up. There was no way they would reach the optimal speed for that sort of thing, not with that short of a distance, but Ivey clearly expected it would be good enough.

The cars caught in the blast had been pushed away by the sheer force of the explosion. Alex caught a glimpse of what had probably been a family saloon, now a blackened knot of metal, and he tried not to wonder how many people had been in it. Then his attention was grabbed by the wreckage up ahead, two or three cars pushed together in a twisting pile from the blast and the wrecked road to the other side of them, right by the centre of the explosion. Ivey aimed sort of between the two obstacles, dodging the trap that was the broad crater, because that thing would slow them down at best and probably wreck the car at worst. There wasn't quite enough room for them, though, Alex could plainly see that.

 _Aim for the back of the car,_ he remembered from his brief lessons in that sort of thing, from Baghdad and the days spent learning executive protection. _Don't try to move the heavier end w_ _here_ _the engine_ _is_ _; aim for the lightest part,_ but how could _anyone_ tell what was front and back in that mess of twisted metal?

Ivey seemed to have a decent idea. Alex had only a second or two to brace himself, grip the edge of his seat and _hold_ _on_ -

\- and then the Land Cruiser jerked as it hit the skeleton of the car, a loud crash of metal against metal; of screeching bits of car dragged along wrecked tarmac with a sound like nails on a chalkboard -

\- and then they were through; smoke easing up and the road stretching wide and empty.

They passed by the cars that had been caught on the other side of the explosion; smouldering metal to wrecked to barely damaged, and every instinct in Alex told him to stop, to help, but he also knew with icy certainty that the only reason he was still alive was the armour on the Land Cruiser and Ivey's instincts. It would be suicide to stop, the bullet marks from the sniper rounds were vivid proof of that.

A few cars had stopped, way up ahead. Most had continued on, survival instincts overriding everything else.

There was already a steady stream of instructions from Alex's earpiece. They couldn't risk going straight to the airport now in this car, not when it would be expected by their attackers, but that was nothing they hadn't planned for.

Ivey shifted to their backup plans. Started driving and didn't slow down again, catching up with the cars up ahead and barrelling past. It would be pointless to pretend they had nothing to do with the bombing, that they weren't the target – the bullet marks made that impossible. Right now they had to escape. Everything else was secondary.

The radio was on, tuned to the police frequency. Alex tried to focus past the world that rapidly sped by beyond the damaged window and utterly failed.

" _\- shooters present -"_

" _\- alerted hospitals to prepare for -"_

" _\- car forced its way through; a white Toyota Land Cruiser with the licence plate -"_

" _\- confirmed casualties."_

Alex took a deep breath. Stared at his hands. They were still trembling. How long did they have before the net closed in on them? They hadn't been behind the bomb but they _had_ been the target and any law enforcement agency in the country could want a word or ten with them now.

He knew the backup plans, knew what they were supposed to do, but it still felt like time passed endlessly slow for all that the world was a blur outside. Was the secondary car safe? Had the snipers tried to target that one instead once their primary target was gone? Did they know about it at all? How had they even known about Alex's presence in the first place?

Leave the main road, the sound of horns as Ivey barely avoided a van – too slow to get out of the way – and Alex bit back the hysterical laughter that threatened to erupt. Someone had just tried to kill them and he found himself keeping a mental tally of just how many traffic violations Ivey could manage. He was pretty sure that was not the recommended way to cope with that sort of thing.

They reached their destination in what had to be record time – an underground parking basement with good clearance.

There was surveillance, of course. Those cameras had been disabled while they were still en route. There was security, but nothing they couldn't easily work around. Alex didn't ask about any witnesses. He did notice that the parking basement was marked as closed so he assumed any lingering car owners had politely been shown the door more or less forcefully.

They came to a stop by a dark blue BMW. Alex didn't need to look at it to know it was armoured and every bit as secure as the Land Cruiser was. It was one of two backup cars that had been arranged for in advance. Alex had thought it was overkill. He was grateful for that now.

Was that the sort of security Zeljan Kurst had travelled with? Alex wouldn't be surprised. The man had been extremely high profile and had kept a fairly large dedicated security team for just that reason.

Alex got out. The silence around them felt – odd. Loud, somehow. Wrong, after everything that had happened. His ears felt a little like someone had stuffed cotton in them. The car smelled like burnt tarmac and scorched metal and harsh smoke, with dark streaks and dents marring the surface. Outside, up close, he could see just how deep the bullets had penetrated the windows and felt a chill. High-calibre ammunition. A slight bit higher calibre, and he wouldn't have been breathing at all.

They met one of the men from Alex's guard teams by the BMW. Ivey handed over the keys. Got another set in return. Just like that, Alex found himself in the dark, sleek interior of a pristine, new car; less spacious than the Land Cruiser but just as heavily protected.

The Land Cruiser would be handled; removed before anyone could get their hands on any evidence. The BMW would undoubtedly be tracked down but not in the time it would take them to get to the airport and off the ground.

Two minutes later, they were back on the road. Alex felt unsettled and couldn't even begin to explain why. Was this what his life would be in the future? He wasn't even recognised as Yassen's successor yet. How much worse would it be later on?

How had they even known, for that matter? Someone had found out, someone had decided to target him – maybe a competitor, maybe an intelligence agency, Alex had no idea but a lot of possible enemies – and that meant someone had intel they shouldn't have.

The CIA? He didn't think Byrne stood to gain much right now if Alex died but even then he couldn't rule it out. One of SCORPIA's own? They had kept the necessary information strictly to the people who absolutely had to know but mistakes happened. Or someone wasn't as loyal as they should have been. Alex trusted Sagitta. Trusted the guards that Jean had recommended, at least enough to be reasonably sure they hadn't been involved. Trusted that Gale, like all of SCORPIA's elite operatives, was absolutely loyal. But there had been others. People who had handled logistics, flight plans, the cars … there were a lot of potential leaks that way. Accidental ones, too.

" _Breathe_." Shale, low but sharp, and Alex obeyed without conscious thought and only realised then how dizzy he felt. "We're fine, Adams is en route, Marcus is already cursing. We'll find the mole. _Breathe._ "

Easier said than done. Alex still made the effort to focus on his breathing, a slow, steady inhale-exhale-inhale as his pulse lowered slightly. He was sore from the seat belt but that was all. No new injuries that he could tell.

He spent the entire drive expecting another attack. Based on the sharp focus Ivey kept on their surroundings, so did he.

Nothing happened, though. No attack. No suspicious tails. They followed local traffic, did their best not to stand out in any way, listened to communications and the radio, and arrived at the airport somewhat delayed compared to the original plan but without a single scratch.

They were in the air within thirty minutes of their arrival and with the full team with them. The guard teams would handle clean-up. The wait for their take-off slot had felt endless and even as they finally moved, Alex kept expecting something to go wrong.

It must have been obvious he was still rattled because Adams settled down in the seat across from him and handled him a tumbler of dark liquid.

Alex took a sniff of it. Strong, smoky, and definitely alcoholic. Whiskey. Possibly Scotch, he couldn't tell the difference. "Yassen will kill me."

"You're not on any interesting painkillers these days, it'll be out of your system before we get back, and you look like you could use a little something to calm your nerves."

Alex hesitated. Good points. It didn't smell like it would taste very good, though, so he picked the practical solution and downed it in one go. It still burned all the way down and the flavour, strong and peat-like, lingered in his mouth. He grimaced and reached for a soda to wash it down. It left him with a weird, sweetish-smoky aftertaste he really could have done without.

"Islay. Laphroaig. Good booze is wasted on teenagers." Adams sounded a little mournful but not overly surprised.

 _Islay_ rang a faint bell from the Countess' lessons but that was all.

"First time someone's tried to assassinate you?" Adams asked and managed to sound both surprisingly sympathetic about it and like it was the most natural question in the world.

Not the first time someone had tried to kill Alex, because Adams knew damn well that wasn't the case and that Alex had the scars to prove it, but this was – different.

 _First time someone's tried to assassinate you._ And it had been, hadn't it? A bomb, sure, but still an assassination attempt. Not the result of an assignment or in combat or because of Kurst's games. Some had meticulously planned it with the express purpose of seeing him dead.

Alex felt cold. Shaken. Yassen had warned him. Now he had seen it in person.

Yassen had blown up a prison to take out Julia Rothman in the name of revenge. Why was Alex so surprised that someone would use a roadside bomb against him?

"… First time someone cared that little about collateral damage," Alex eventually replied. How many people had been killed in that blast? Fifty? Sixty? More? Just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and someone had decided that kind of collateral damage would be an acceptable price to pay to kill him.

Who had even been behind it? Unless they found out and retaliated, whoever it was would still be out there. Still planning. If Alex had been valuable enough to go after once, he would be so again. This time he hadn't lost any of his security people. Any of Sagitta. How long would that luck hold?

"It was expected," Adams said. "Sure, a little sooner than we thought, but …"

He trailed off. Shrugged. "You'll be a target. You weren't given this much security just because you're a bit of a trouble magnet and Mr Gregorovich wanted to keep an eye on you. Take the time to be rattled, bitch and curse if that makes you feel better, go shoot up some targets, and know it'll happen again. Maybe a sniper next time, or an attempted poisoning, or whatever else assassins like to try, but it'll happen again. If we do our jobs right, you'll be alive to feel rattled about those, too. Your first roadside bomb is always a bit of a shock."

 _First roadside bomb._ That kind of implied there would be more. Alex really didn't want to think about that, either.

At least Yassen was still in Abu Dhabi. He had deliberately decided to stay until Alex was back and the evaluation of the whole thing was done with. Alex wouldn't be alone, then. It was an odd thought, because he knew he had Jack and Sagitta, but Yassen felt reliable in a way that no one else really did. Maybe he wouldn't tell Alex what he wanted to hear but he would make him feel a little more able to accept it. Get over the shock.

"The explosion," Alex asked. "Do we know how many …?"

Adams watched him carefully. "Does it matter?"

 _Yes. No. I – maybe?_

Adams waited a heartbeat but continued before Alex could answer. "This isn't your fault. You didn't decide on that bomb, you didn't set it up, and you didn't detonate it. You were the target, sure. Do you really think it would have been any different if they'd sent someone other than you? Maybe it would have been a different city, maybe a different method, but someone wanted to target SCORPIA and they would have done it no matter what."

"I picked the meeting place."

"One of three options," Adams corrected. "Byrne made the final decision. You think they would have agreed to a meeting somewhere far enough from civilisation that no one could get caught in the crossfire? Too risky. Maybe it wouldn't have been Johannesburg. Maybe it wouldn't have been a bomb. Maybe it would have been a sniper in the middle of a crowded street in Paris, or maybe they would have tried to bomb the plane instead."

Like Ash had done sixteen years ago. Suddenly, Alex could use another glass of that Scotch.

"It's not your fault," Adams repeated. "Find whoever did it, get even, and make sure it won't happen again. That's the way to handle it."

Until the next time someone wanted to target him. And the next. And the next.

This was his life now. Yassen, who had been an assassin for fifteen years, had known exactly what he had agreed to with his promotion. He had killed enough people to know just how many ways someone could be targeted and how creative someone might be if the reward was big enough. He had known just how much security he would need. Alex … hadn't. He'd had a vague idea but it had never really been a solid concept until he had seen the security setup for Johannesburg on paper for the first time and it hadn't _felt_ real until now.

Now it felt entirely too real, in fact.

"I …" Alex trailed off. He wasn't even sure what he had been trying to say.

"Rest," Adams said. "Get your head on straight. Then get even. We'll find who did it, patch up holes in security, and make sure it won't happen again."

That sounded like Yassen's approach to things. It wasn't like there was much else Alex could do. Just nod. It seemed to be enough for Adams, because he patted Alex on the shoulder, then got up and left him on his own again.

He should rest. He should write up a preliminary report. He should try to get a head start on the debriefing Yassen was going to put him through.

Alex ignored all of it. Instead he curled up in his seat, closed his eyes, and hoped he wouldn't dream.

* * *

A/N: As always, thank you for reading and for your reviews!

Guest: It's two weeks from the most recently posted chapter. I barely have time to finish one chapter in two weeks. I'm certainly not going to try to make up for any delays from previous weeks on top of that.

Next: Maybe Yassen isn't exactly a shining example of what a therapist should be, but Alex thinks he does a decent enough job, anyway.


	82. Still Alive

By the time Alex was back at Malagosto, some nine hours, four thousand miles, and two time zones later, the clock had inched its way past three in the morning.

The compound was quiet. The ever-present guards were still at the entrance and the other security checkpoints, but the buildings were mostly dark and the grounds devoid of people. Sagitta would stay the night at the school. There were debriefings to handle, security to keep up, and no one seemed willing to leave him alone for now. Alex supposed it made sense. Someone had just tried to kill him and come very close to succeeding. Malagosto's location was known but it was still one of the most secure SCORPIA compounds in the world.

Alex wasn't sure what he expected when he arrived. A flash of red hair and a tight hug wasn't it.

" _Alex._ "

What Jack Starbright was doing up at three in the morning, Alex didn't know. All he could do was cling to her, intimidating assassin image and appearances be damned, and feel the stress of the past many days finally catch up with him.

He returned the hug just as tightly, wildly grateful his chest was doing so much better and just as grateful that she was there.

Alex heard someone shift behind him, then footsteps as some of his security detail left.

Jack let go. Took a step back and gave him a careful once-over. "All right?" she asked.

 _I am now,_ he didn't say, because it was one thing to hug her like that and something else entirely to admit out loud how much that had actually meant. He knew she would understand, though.

"… I will be."

Alex took a deep breath. Glanced behind him. Most of Sagitta was gone, probably dismissed by Adams. The man in question watched him closely.

"All right?" he asked, echoing Jack.

Alex exhaled. Felt some of his tension go with it. "Yeah, I've got it from here. See you tomorrow."

Adams nodded but didn't argue. Just let Alex leave with Jack as they headed towards the guest quarters together.

It was always a little odd to be on the school grounds that late when there was no night-time exercise going on. The world felt still. The wind had died down, the usual sounds of the school long since faded for the night. Out in the distance were the distant lights from ships. Far, far above were the blinking lights of a plane. Even the air smelled different; cleaner and colder.

Despite the occasional bad memory, Alex liked night-time at Malagosto.

"What are you doing up, anyway?" he eventually asked.

Jack grimaced slightly. "Homework. Gregorovich kept me up to date on things with you but I've got an assignment due in two days. I managed four hours of sleep, got up about an hour ago. I could get it done faster but I want to do it right."

Definitely the sensible approach. It didn't matter what class it was; Malagosto could be lethal if you tried to cut corners. Even if Jack didn't have that threat hanging over her head, she still tried to make sure not to give Yassen or Dr Three any reason to change their minds about the arrangement.

Alex remembered nights of little sleep from his own time there; the times when it came down to the choice between proper dinner, an extra hour of sleep, or getting his homework done to Yassen's standards. Homework had always won out. He hadn't dared risk anything else.

Jack unlocked the door to her room. Alex followed. They didn't discuss it and didn't need to. Alex suspected she needed his company right now as much as he needed hers. He had slept a good part of the flight, anyway. He would be tired without proper sleep but … all right. Good enough, anyway.

There was an open carry-on suitcase on her desk stuffed to the brim with what seemed to be the usual sort of carry-on bits and bobs, a mess of assorted small tools next to it, and a metal box with foam padding inside placed within easy reach.

Jack spotted his glance. Grimaced again.

"That would be my homework. Here's a stack of bugs, here's a bag of random stuff, you have two days."

Alex took a closer look. Some of the bugs in the box looked familiar. None of the implants he had seen – not surprising considering the sheer cost of those – but a number of others that had been covered by Yassen's lessons. Different types, too. The smallest one almost vanished in the foam padding. The biggest, a miniature computer, was the size of a solid pack of gum. Good luck hiding _that_ somewhere.

"How'll they grade it?" he asked, genuinely curious. How long it would take them to find all of the bugs? How well she managed to hide them?

"No idea." Jack settled down and turned on a small, bright lamp above her desk.

Alex blinked. "Well, that's helpful." And maybe not that surprising, since it was one of SCORPIA's classes. They didn't like to make things easy. Like idle hands, easy classes were a waste of time and money. D'Arc had talked plenty about that during the time Alex had spent learning how the school functioned.

"Isn't it just?" Jack's voice was bone-dry. She glanced at him. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Alex hesitated.

"… No," he admitted. With Yassen, sure, he wouldn't get a choice. With Jack … it was enough for her to know someone had tried to kill him but failed. She didn't need the details. Alex suspected he would have plenty of nightmares about it for both of them.

Jack looked like she had expected that answer. "I kind of figured that. Want to keep me company for a couple of hours?"

It was well past three. Alex should be in bed. Alex should be working on reports or homework or flight theory if he couldn't sleep. Alex had a lot of things he should be doing.

"… Yeah," he admitted quietly.

Jack didn't answer. Just dug a flimsy, black lace bra from the mess in the carry-on and ran a hand along the seams with a thoughtful look. There wasn't much fabric in it. The lace itself would be impossible to work with. The clasp was tiny. The seams weren't much better. It was, Alex figured, more or less the exact opposite of the thick, padded bras that gave Cheshire her figure.

"Not much to work with there."

"I'm hoping that'll get me a better grade," Jack agreed.

Good point. There were a lot of other things in that carry-on that Alex could see would be much easier to work with, from a heavy silk tie to a cellphone and matching charger. The things that they, whoever graded the assignment, would probably expect her to go for. But then, that would be the easy solution, wouldn't it? And Malagosto rarely approved of the easy solution.

The biggest of the bugs wouldn't leave a lot of options, but something like the small ones … Alex didn't have the patience or skills to do any real kind of sewing but maybe Jack did.

Alex fell silent and let Jack do her work. The real world would intrude fast enough. For now, Alex settled down to watch as Jack set about embedding one of the bugs in the seam with tiny, careful stitches.

* * *

Malagosto came to life long before sunrise.

Alex left Jack again not long after five, when she had to get ready for the day. On the other side of the compound, the rest of the students would be getting up, too. Some of the instructors would sleep a little longer – Gordon Ross was generally less than pleasant to be around before six in the morning unless there was a night-time exercise involved – and others would already have been up an hour or more. Professor Yermalov was a firm believer in starting the day early, usually at four. Alex was a firm believer that Professor Yermalov was crazy.

Alex left the room, closed the door behind him, and wasn't all that surprised to find Yassen waiting in the hallway outside Alex's own room. He doubted the man had waited long, if he had at all. He had to know Alex had stayed with Jack. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume Alex would leave when it was normally time for her to get up.

Alex was a little surprised Yassen hadn't shown up earlier, honestly.

"Did it help?" Yassen's voice, barely a murmur, carried easily between them.

And there was his answer, Alex realised. _Did it help?_ Yassen had known Alex was rattled after – after everything. He could have been there when Alex arrived. He had probably already been awake, knowing the man's sleeping patterns. He was a busy man, all the more so now that he was the co-head of SCORPIA, but he had always made time for Alex. Instead he had let Jack be there, had let Alex have a few hours to just unwind and think of something else, and …

"… Yeah," Alex admitted. "Thank you."

He felt a little lighter, a little less rattled, a little more back to normal. Just a little. He had needed that; two hours to just be Alex and just hang around Jack without politics or training or plans or assassination attempts to get in the way. Even if it had been in the middle of the night and watching Jack do her homework.

Alex unlocked the door in silence. Neither of them spoke until they were inside the room, the door safely locked behind them.

It felt weirdly reassuring to be back. The room was way too close to Dr Three's domain, it wasn't home, it didn't really have anything in the way of personal touches, but it still made Alex feel safe in a way he hadn't felt since that roadside bomb. Malagosto could still become a target but with the security measures in place, it would take a lot more to be a real threat than it had to target Alex in Johannesburg.

Alex's hand lingered on the bed but he wasn't really tired. Exhausted and wired both but not tired, not in the sleepy sort of sense. He could sleep later, anyway.

Yassen gave him a considering look. "There is still the debriefing to handle but that can wait another few hours."

Alex shook his head. "I'll sleep tonight. I slept for most of the flight, anyway."

"That was not what I meant." Yassen's expression was calm. Thoughtful as he watched him, though that was only visible to someone who knew him as well as Alex did. "You have had little chance to deal with events. It will make the debriefing easier if you do."

 _Deal with events._ Talk about it, then, since Alex doubted Yassen was about to send him off to one of SCORPIA's psychologists. Dr Steiner would probably have a field day if he did.

Alex stayed quiet, not sure what to say to that one.

"Your hand." A glance told Alex which hand Yassen meant.

Alex obeyed without question and watched Yassen remove the watch with the secondary tracker with swift, efficient motions.

"I think," Yassen said, "we will leave the primary tracker for now as an added precaution."

Alex knew the answer to that one. That was not a suggestion and it certainly wasn't up for debate.

"… Yes, sir."

The implant would stay, then. More benign than his original one had been and perfectly understandable after everything that had happened but Alex still didn't like the thought of it. It was one thing to know his life was controlled by SCORPIA – by Yassen and Dr Three. It was something else entirely to know his every move was tracked in close to real-time. At least the 'insurance' tracker he had first been given had only recorded his position. It hadn't transmitted it.

"As for the alcohol, I will make an exception this once. Do not make a habit of it."

No risk of _that._ Not if that was the sort of thing the bar in the business jets tended to get stocked with. He did appreciate Yassen's concern, though. And it _was_ concern. It would be very easy to find himself sliding down that slope, one drink to steady the nerves after a particularly nasty job, then another, and another, until everything came crashing down.

"I think the taste was punishment enough, anyway." Alex could still taste the memory of it and didn't care for it one bit. It had probably been expensive, too. Why anyone would pay money for that, Alex didn't know.

"Islay," Yassen said, faintly amused, "is perhaps not the most suitable introduction to Scotch."

Adams had probably done that on purpose. Just in case.

Alex fell silent. He wasn't sure what to actually say now that he had someone to talk to. Yassen had arranged for that bombing of Gibraltar to target Julia Rothman and never even blinked at the collateral damage that came with it. Nineteen dead last Alex had heard but since the 'naval communication centre' had been a secret MI6 prison, the true loss of life could easily be three times that and no one would ever know. All to target one person.

How had Johannesburg been any different? Dozens dead just to target Alex, all because they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Answer: it wasn't, and Alex knew it. This was what Yassen had arranged for in the name of cold, calculated revenge for events that had happened sixteen years before. Rothman had never known. Alex doubted MI6 would ever know the reason for sure, either.

This was the sort of grudge Alex himself might face in ten or fifteen or twenty years.

Collateral damage didn't matter in that kind of world. MI6 had been bad enough about that. SCORPIA, cold-blooded and ruthless, didn't care at all. How many had died in the name of profit during some operation or another? How many others had survived by the slimmest of chances because an operation had failed? Like Cray. Like Rothman in London. Like Graff's drug, still in Dr Three's hands. Like van Rensburg, who had been ready to call a new Black Death down upon an entire continent.

… Like Yassen, who did not approve of large scale terrorist operations simply because of the attention they drew and because of his agreement with Alex. Not because of any moral objections. Yassen Gregorovich had been SCORPIA's extended will with Sayle, their insurance that things would run smoothly, and he had never even blinked at the number of deaths that smallpox virus could have caused.

For the first time, Alex looked at Yassen and actually saw him for what he was now. Not just the promoted assassin and most recent member of the board, but the ruthless head of a global terrorist organisation. The man who had slaughtered his way through the old executive board with cold, calculated efficiency. Cossack had caused hundreds of deaths by his own hands. Yassen Gregorovich could cause thousands of times more with SCORPIA to back him.

"Alex?" Cool, blue eyes took in every minute shift in Alex's features, every small sign of his emotional state. Yassen could read him frighteningly well but even Yassen Gregorovich wasn't really a mind reader.

How many people could have arranged for that roadside bomb? How many _would_? It had just become painfully clear to Alex just how long that list really was. Intelligence agencies, competitors, opportunists; for money or revenge or ideology or simple convenience -

How many assassinations like that had Yassen carried out? Yassen Gregorovich was a sniper, one of the best in the world, and SCORPIA had made good use of that … but that wasn't the only weapon in his arsenal. That wasn't the only weapon his assignments had demanded.

How much collateral damage had Yassen caused in his career? Alex would never ask. He doubted Yassen even knew. The man certainly didn't care.

"I -" Alex began. Stopped.

"Alex."

Calloused hands gripped Alex's own and only when he looked down did he realise his hands were shaking. Yassen's grip was strong and steady, safe in a way Alex hadn't felt since Johannesburg, and in that instant every emotion from the past day hit him like a freight train.

"Someone tried to kill me." His voice sounded hoarse and pitiful even to his own ears. People had tried to kill him before but this was _different._ Those times had been assignments, times when Alex had been tangled up in their plans. He had expected it, then. This was -

"They killed -"

 _\- Dozens, dozens just to see him dead -_

"They killed – people. That weren't even involved. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'm _sixteen._ "

If Ivey's instincts had been any less finely honed, if he had been a second slower to react, Alex would have been killed, and Ivey and Shale with him.

One hand let go. A moment later, Alex felt the light brush of a finger against his cheek. Realised then that he was crying.

"You are a threat to a number of people and will grow all the more so in the future," Yassen murmured. "Age matters little, then. You are sixteen? Had they known then what they do now, they would have had you assassinated before MI6 could ever have laid eyes on you."

Alex laughed, short and bitter. "And that's supposed to be _reassuring?_ "

"No," Yassen said quietly. "That is a statement of fact. I did not give you a permanent security team merely to keep you out of trouble. You are young, but your potential makes you a target."

What Adams had told him, too. The words felt a lot heavier coming from one of the best assassins in the world.

"People have tried to kill me before. Even – even Daniels and the threat of Blunt wasn't this bad. I thought …" Alex trailed off. He didn't need to finish the sentence.

 _I thought I could handle it._

"In those cases, you were on assignments with little to no backup. You had only yourself to rely on. With agent Daniels, you had far more important things to worry about in the aftermath." Yassen paused. "It is different when you have to rely on others. This time, you could do nothing but watch and trust that your security team had the situation under control. It is not a pleasant position to be in when you are used to being responsible for your own survival."

He sounded almost understanding. Sympathetic. Alex wondered if Yassen was still trying to get used to his own security detail, too.

Of course, it probably helped that Yassen didn't care how many innocents got killed in the crossfire. Alex wasn't blind to the fact that Yassen's reassurance of sorts had entirely ignored that part of it.

It wasn't just that someone had killed a lot of innocents in an attempt to kill Alex. It was the unspoken expectation that he would one day be willing to do the same to others himself.

"I can't be you. I can't do – this." Casually write off dozens or hundreds of lives to target one, dismiss collateral damage as merely part of the job, and just carry on like nothing had happened.

Yassen could have argued. Alex almost expected him to. It could be different in a year, or two, or five, or if someone Alex loved was at risk. How many innocent bystanders would be an acceptable trade for Jack's life? He didn't want to think about it. Yassen stayed silent, though. He knew that Alex was well aware of it, and Alex was grateful for that. He knew. He didn't need it spelled out for him. Yassen might consider it a weakness Alex could not afford to keep for much longer but for now, he was willing to let Alex cling to that.

"We will ensure there is suitable incentive not to make another attempt on your life," Yassen said instead. "For now, at least."

 _Find whoever did it, get even, and make sure it won't happen again._

Another memory wormed its way to the surface, sharp and cold.

 _Sufficiently strong examples to discourage further attempts._ Those had been Yassen's exact words about SCORPIA's competitors. Alex had mostly ignored it back then in the hope that if he did, he wouldn't have to think about it. It seemed time had run out on that particular delusion.

Alex had wondered briefly back then what 'sufficiently strong examples' would be. He supposed he was about to find out. It wasn't like whoever was behind it cared about collateral damage. That meant they would need to get personal.

More than that, it meant Alex would need to be involved as well. He doubted Yassen or Dr Three would allow anything else. One day, that sort of thing would be Alex's own responsibility. Ensuring that the cost of targeting him – him, or Yassen, or Dr Three, or the people he cared about – was too high to risk it.

Was that how Yassen and Dr Three planned to wear down his sense of morality? One little sliver at a time, so slowly and with so reasonable arguments that he never even noticed?

"Alex."

Alex looked up. Caught Yassen's gaze again as the man continued. "I do not expect you to handle this with the ease of an experienced operative. You are sixteen. You will struggle. You will be forced to make decisions you do not wish to make. If Starbright's presence helps ease that strain, increase security around her and accept the comfort given. But know that if you show weakness to the world beyond for even a moment, your enemies will seize upon that opportunity. To create sufficiently strong incentive to leave you and yours alone is not something you will enjoy, but it will keep you safer in the end. Equally important to you, it will lessen collateral damage with the decreased number of attacks. You can accept the assassination attempts and hope no one outwits your security detail or you can destroy the problem at its root. Those are your choices."

The former meant risking not just his own life but Sagitta and Jack and Yassen as well. The latter meant dealing with things Alex wasn't sure he would ever be ready to face.

Had he really expected he would be able to go through with his plans and not have to deal with the darker side of things sooner or later? Deep down he had known it was just a matter of time. He had just been happier ignoring it. Now he couldn't ignore it any longer. Not if his inaction and squeamishness might get someone he cared about killed. He couldn't always rely on Yassen and Dr Three's reputation to shield him. Eventually they would retire. Alex would be on his own. And he refused to give someone an order he wouldn't be willing to carry out himself.

Yassen had shielded him as much as he could. He wouldn't be able to do that for much longer. Maybe Yassen had been waiting for something like this; something bad enough to rattle Alex when even Malagosto and their assignments and Kurst couldn't. Maybe they had both been waiting for it.

It seemed like everything in his life these days came down to the least bad decision between two miserable choices.

He had time; whatever time it would take to hunt down the mole and whoever had attacked him. Knowing Yassen's relentlessness, that was still a short deadline.

Hide in Yassen's shadow, under Yassen's wing, or stand on his own like he would have to sometime soon. Keep dodging assassins until someone got lucky and someone he cared about got hurt or killed, or … do what it would take to make most think twice about it.

It wasn't just Yu's security detail that had kept him safe. So had his reputation for brutal, sadistic revenge. Even an amateur could get lucky, but Yu's reputation – and the consequences if a would-be assassin had been caught alive – ensured that most would never have risked it even if they got the chance.

Dr Three rarely left the safety of his domain these days but while his security had always been less than Yu's, the man's reputation was enough to get all but the most well-paid and determined assassins to back off. The doctor never turned down another research subject. Alex doubted there was enough money in the world to hire an assassin for _that_ job who wasn't completely and absolutely sure they would succeed – and if they didn't, that they would be able to hide well enough to never be found.

It was a short list. It had been six years since the last attempt on the doctor's life. Alex honestly doubted there would be another, even with politics as they were now.

People feared Dr Three for good reasons. In some circles, Cossack was more nightmare than man as well, merciless and unstoppable.

One day soon, Alex would need to become the same. If not for his own safety, then for those around him. For Jack, and Tom, and Sagitta, and Yassen. For the people he would be responsible for the day he took over SCORPIA. For the many people that would die if he failed and the organisation crumbled. Not just SCORPIA's own people but the innocents he could have protected by stopping people like Sayle or Grief in their tracks.

"Consider it," Yassen said when Alex still didn't speak. "Rest for now. Remember you are alive, and your security team with you. Next time, they will do better."

 _Next time._

Alex wanted to argue. Knew he couldn't, not really. Still, the weight of everything had eased a little despite it all. The guilt lingered, the worry about the people who had died, but – less.

Yassen had not tried to soften the blow. In some odd way, Alex realised that was what he had needed. This was his reality now. This was what he had worked towards; what he wanted. The sooner he accepted that, the better.

Glancing outside at the grounds of Malagosto and the first light of dawn, he still missed how uncomplicated things had been before.

* * *

Lolali: Adams is an endlessly practical man (he has to be, to keep up with Marcus) and picked the practical approach, which was much the same approach someone else took with Adams himself the first time he almost got killed. He's just forgetting that Alex is sixteen years old and doesn't need 'practical' - he needs a hug.

Next: Just what everyone else have been up to.


	83. Interlude: Mirrored

Tom Harris didn't talk with Jack Starbright every week or even every other. They both had a lot of things to deal with and two intelligence agencies watching their every move. Tom kept himself busy with school, sports, and work. Jack kept herself busy with … well. Whatever the CIA actually let her do.

Sometimes they talked on the phone. Sometimes it was an email. Always careful, though. Always vague.

Tom missed someone to really talk with.

The first sign he got that something was wrong was when Jack didn't answer her phone. It could have been perfectly innocent. She could have been busy. Something in Tom still settled uneasily as the phone kept ringing and eventually went to voicemail.

He told himself it was fine and pushed the feeling away. Spent an hour cursing his maths homework instead.

Jack didn't call back. Not that evening. Not the next day.

Tom called again. Let it ring until it reached her voicemail. Tried again. This time he listened to that gut feeling and tried mailing her, too. Just a single word.

 _jack?_

He didn't get an answer to that one, either.

Had something happened? Had they moved her to another safe house? He doubted MI6 or the CIA would have told him anything. He still dug out the slip of paper he had with the number to contact MI6 at and tried his luck.

Tom Harris was met by three different versions of 'Classified' and threw a minor fit at the fourth minion he managed to reach before he gave up. Put down the phone and just stared at it.

No response to phone or email. Nothing from MI6, and they _clearly_ knew something, even Tom could tell that much. He didn't know how to contact Jack's parents, he didn't know her address after they moved her, and he had no resources of his own. He had the horrible suspicion if he tried to file a missing person's report – in America, even, if he could figure out how to do it from halfway across the world – that would go missing, too.

Just like that, Jack Starbright had vanished into the shadowy world of intelligence agencies and there was nothing Tom could do. Nothing. Like Alex, she had been there one day and was gone the next without a trace.

Would the same thing happen to Tom himself as well? His hand trembled slightly as he stared at the phone. MI6 hadn't cared nearly as much about his security as the CIA had about Jack's but then, they had wanted her for bait, too. Tom was just – there. In case Alex might get stupid enough to contact him. Tom could say a lot about Alex, but stupid wasn't on the list.

Jack was missing. Alex had been gone for a year and a half already. He had the horrible feeling that Jack would never be back, either.

Tom Harris was entirely on his own.

His 'security' was still out there, he would catch a glimpse of them every once in a while, but now he wondered if that was what had happened to Jack. Had she become useful all of a sudden? It would have been very easy to bring her in when they already had 'security' around her. It wasn't kidnapping when it was the government doing it, after all.

Alex had run. At fourteen and with the choice between MI6 and the assassin who had killed his uncle, he had chosen the assassin. Had he known something Jack and Tom himself hadn't? Tom couldn't help but wonder now.

Tom Harris stayed home from school the following day. Well, officially he had a cold. It was just the season for it, his mum was always busy in the mornings, and it wasn't the first time he had faked one, anyway. He spent the day staring at the ceiling and wondered what to do.

He stayed home the next day, too. Traded shifts at work. Then the weekend hit and he still stayed in his room.

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, in-between the ridiculous amounts of spam Tom's inbox somehow always attracted, was the mail he had been hoping for.

 _I'm safe_

 _Talk later, be careful_

 _xoxo_

Tom let out a slow breath. Felt the weight of long days of silence lift from his shoulders. It was Jack, the style and the greeting at the end told him that. He didn't know the details and right now he didn't need to. He could get that stuff later. For now, all he cared about was that Jack was safe – somewhere, but _safe_ – and the rest could wait.

Tom Harris went to school Monday morning. He flipped off his 'security' on the way. But he went.

* * *

Collins didn't really try to keep track of his old classmates from Malagosto. Semi-permanently stationed in Brazil with the cover of a recently-divorced American expat enjoying his newfound freedom, he had found himself with quite the cushy assignment. He made a good living, could probably pay off the last of his debt to SCORPIA within two years, and never ran out of work. What the rest of his classmates were up to wasn't really his problem.

Alex Rider, of course, was the exception.

They had all known the kid would go far. Trained as Gregorovich's apprentice and fast-tracked to the highest echelons of SCORPIA, that kid would wield a lot of influence if he survived to grow up.

No one had quite expected it to go that fast. Gregorovich had been promoted to the executive board half a year after Rider's graduation and Rider himself catapulted to the position of the man's second in command at fifteen years of age.

It was a demanding job with a terrifying boss. No amount of money could have convinced Collins to accept though he was sure that most operatives – younger, more impulsive, and still with that conviction that they were invincible – would have taken the opportunity in a heartbeat.

Then the board had started to drop like flies. Collins wasn't stupid. Maybe the average operative didn't get the news as fast as they might want to – and Collins counted himself in that group – but that sort of thing was hard to keep secret. Someone was targeting the board and doing a damn good job of it.

First Kroll and Yu. Then Duval got kidnapped, someone finally managed to get a hit on Kurst and Mikato, and Chase seemed to vanish from the face of the earth.

Then it stopped, and before any rumours could really start, a message was passed on to SCORPIA in general. It was phrased a little differently depending on who passed on the news but the core of it remained the same.

 _The organisation is under new management._

Dr Three and Gregorovich. Not a partnership Collins would have expected but then, he didn't get paid to get involved in politics. His job and orders remained the same, and so did his pay, and that was his primary concern.

Of course, that didn't keep him from musing on the situation as he did reconnaissance for his next assignment. It was slow, boring work but it had kept him alive for years in a line of work that wasn't exactly known for being safe, so he never slacked on it.

Collins couldn't prove it, of course, but he had a theory. Rider wasn't just Gregorovich's second in command. The kid had been trained to Gregorovich's standards and sure, Gregorovich had plenty of reasons to take an active interest in his apprentice and future partner's training but it seemed to be a little more than that.

Alex Rider was being moved into position as Gregorovich's eventual successor, Collins would bet good money on it. SCORPIA had already had obvious plans to turn Rider into Gregorovich's successor in the field when the man himself retired. It wouldn't be a stretch to imagine that Gregorovich's plans went a little further than that.

Whatever people's personal opinions on that change in management might be, no one seemed to be in any hurry to complain about it. With Dr Three's new, prominent position, Collins didn't blame them at all. The man wasn't known for his patience with those who annoyed him.

Increased responsibility or not, Collins doubted the doctor would turn down another couple of lab rats to experiment on.

* * *

At twenty-nine, Jack Starbright was back in school. It wasn't by choice. It wasn't the sort of school she would have picked. But there she was, bright and early at the ungodly hour of five in the morning, glaring balefully at her workout clothes,

She hated exercise. She hated homework. Come to think of it, she hadn't liked school all that much at all.

And here she was. She would have liked to be able to ignore the fact that she would go to 'school' with a bunch of trained killers, but that wasn't exactly an option. However much protection she had by virtue of being that _doctor's_ hand-picked student, it was still a dangerous place.

Alex had done his best to prepare her for the months to come and while Jack couldn't claim to be an expert in the stuff by any means, she had a decent foundation to build on. It had also given her entirely too vivid of an idea of just what Alex's own training had consisted of and she didn't like it one bit. Alex had given her an overview earlier. Only now that Jack herself was about to start those same classes did the details come out.

She hadn't slept much. Alex, when she caught a glimpse of him as she left, looked little better.

They didn't speak. Jack just squeezed his hand and felt him grip hers back tightly in return. However calm and collected he looked, Jack knew Alex well enough to know that he was a bundle of nerves. Just like she worried more about leaving Alex alone with that _doctor_ than she did about her own classes, she suspected that he worried more about her than himself in turn.

He had always been a lot more concerned about other people than himself. Sometimes she got the suspicion that his own safety and well-being came a long way down his list of priorities. Another thing to blame on Ian Rider and his dubious choice of child-rearing methods.

Jack left the guest quarters and stopped outside for just a second. Took a deep breath as the reality of it all hit her again. The first couple of students were already waiting for morning workout to start. Yermalov wasn't there yet but there was still ten minutes left.

Morning run. Breakfast. Classes. She had been spared the worst of them but that didn't change the fact that the first class after breakfast was two hours of Gordon Ross' undivided attention. The same man who liked to use photos of actual people for target practice and who had been ready to shoot a fourteen-year-old for falling short of impossible standards.

Alex might only be a few buildings away but Jack still felt very lonely and very overwhelmed in that moment. Alex would do what he could, she knew that, but she also knew that he was back at the beck and call of that doctor again. They didn't like her or her influence on Alex, neither Gregorovich nor that doctor, and she knew that, too. They would do their best to keep her and Alex away from each other.

Jack Starbright was on her own. Maybe they expected her to back down and give up, maybe they expected her to break, but she would be damned if she would give them that satisfaction.

She had raised the blond-haired little heartbreaking hellion that answered to Alex Rider almost on her own since he was seven. She could damn well handle a school full of would-be killers, too.

* * *

"We have confirmation that Starbright is at Malagosto."

Martino slipped a folder to Joe Byrne. He opened it and found a neat stack of surveillance photos, tagged and numbered with meticulous detail.

Malagosto. He wasn't even surprised. If SCORPIA had her, it would make sense to keep her somewhere secure and within easy reach. They had military bases elsewhere but Joe suspected those would be just a little too far away if they wanted her as leverage.

"How sure are we?" The big question. Even the best of the photos were taken from a significant distance away. It looked like Starbright to him, but …

"About ninety percent. There are some female students and staff there, but she's been photographed with Rider multiple times. We're pretty sure it's her. It could be someone in disguise but it wouldn't make much sense." Martino hesitated slightly. "She's been spotted in one of the outdoor classes as well. One of Yermalov's lessons."

Which … also wasn't as much of a surprise to Joe as it could have been.

"She didn't sound like a hostage when she called her parents, and she's been allowed to keep in somewhat regular contact," Joe said. "She might be there as leverage against Rider, she might be there as protection – or hell, maybe both – but it makes sense to put her through at least some of the classes. Even with close combat training, she wouldn't stand a chance in hell of escaping, and it would keep her busy. With some luck on their part, it would even give her some kind of attachment to the place beyond Rider himself."

It didn't cost SCORPIA much to do but the potential benefits could be substantial.

Starbright had hated the safe house they had put her in. Flipping through the surveillance photos, Joe wondered if she didn't actually prefer that compound, SCORPIA and Three and would-be killers included.

* * *

Ben Daniels found himself in Smithers' domain again one late, dreary afternoon. He had spent four hours doing paperwork with the depressing backdrop of grey clouds and the slight but endless rain beyond his window before he had caved.

He technically wouldn't leave for his next mission for another week but he had just about had it with – well, everything.

"Agent Daniels. I wasn't expecting you for another few days," Smithers greeted him from behind his desk.

It was piled high with an assortment of odds and ends, ranging from a couple of cellphones to what looked like a small modern art sculpture resting precariously close to the edge.

Ben resisted the urge to poke at it. Who knew what kind of surprises it might be hiding and he would rather not spend the rest of the week nursing an electrical burn or something.

"I needed a break from paperwork." And … other reasons he didn't feel comfortable voicing where someone might record it and pass it on to Blunt.

Smithers nodded. Something passed through his eyes, so fast that Ben couldn't identify it. "I don't have everything ready for you, of course, but I do have a few … yes. On your side of the desk, by the right corner – there should be a pen somewhere, a lovely Montblanc. Would you get it for me? Good lad."

Ben looked over the mess of things, careful not to touch anything, until he finally spotted what looked like the black and white tip of the pen and pulled it from its burial site. Meanwhile, Smithers had slowly made his way out of his chair and around the desk. He smiled at the sight of it.

"I'm quite pleased with that one. Hold it like you would when you write and press down the white tip at the same time with your other hand, just like that. It recognises your fingerprints now. It will work as a pen for everyone, of course, but now the more unusual features are locked to you."

Ben turned the pen around a few times to get a feel for the weight. It was heavy but he knew from experience that expensive pens usually were.

"Now press the white tip down for three seconds," Smithers instructed, "then let go again for three seconds, and repeat this twice more."

If Smithers told him to do it in the middle of his office, Ben figured it probably wasn't going to do anything too destructive and did as he was told.

 _\- Two, three -_

Ben let go of the pen for the third time. He heard a sudden, sharp, high-pitched whine. Then it faded again until it was almost gone and left only the faint whisper of a particularly persistent mosquito. Smithers smiled.

"And that, my boy, took out any sort of surveillance within a hundred yards for the next three minutes. Cameras and microphones both. They will suffer no lasting damage, merely have a slight malfunction for a few minutes. It can be adjusted for one to five minutes, you simply have to press the tip and release it for the given amount of seconds. Two for two minutes and so on. Always three times, though. Now, Agent Daniels, you looked like someone who wished to talk but had no place to do so."

Three minutes of privacy. A handy way to force Ben to talk and not dawdle. Ben made a split-second decision.

"Cub, Alex – he was blackmailed into the job by Blunt, wasn't he? He told me, and Blunt all but confirmed it later but wrote it off as just an _unpleasant decision._ "

Smithers looked suddenly tired; weary in a way he hadn't before. "Regretfully, yes. Perhaps he could have refused in theory. The reality beneath the honeyed words was that he had little real choice."

Something in Ben twisted; guilt and anger and something he couldn't place. It was one thing to suspect it and hear it from Blunt; something else entirely to hear it confirmed by someone like Smithers.

Alan Blunt could dress it up however nice he wanted to. No amount of explanations would change the fact that Alex Rider had been conscripted as a child soldier at the age of barely fourteen.

"How many people knew?"

"More than had any right to." Smithers sighed. "And fewer, perhaps, than should have. Once we started lending him out to the Americans – dreadful story, utterly untrustworthy the lot of them – he wasn't much of a secret any longer. They could hardly train up a child like that themselves, heads would certainly roll if that came out, but they had no qualms about using Alex as a cover. He wasn't an _American_ child they endangered, after all."

Ben wished he could say he was surprised. Once he had really started digging, though, he had started to hear all those whispers of other intelligence agencies and the methods they used. MI6 was ruthless but there were plenty of others that were just as bad.

Ben had desperately wanted proof that Alex had been a one-time thing, that while the intelligence world was a cold, brutal place, even they had lines they wouldn't cross. Then he had found a reference to the FBI's attempt at a teenage agent. To years of pointedly ignoring SCORPIA's existence because they were _useful_ and everyone was willing to look the other way when it came to any number of crimes for that. To a lot of things that left a bad taste in Ben's mouth, and those were only the things he had access to.

Looking back, he had been pretty damn naïve about the world he had been dropped into. It had been all excitement and adrenaline to begin with, but now …

"And no one tried to help him." It wasn't a question.

"MI6 can ruin entire lives overnight," Smithers said. "Your name, your history, your credit cards, your home, your very identity erased. Those who knew, I am sorry to say, either didn't care, didn't consider it their business, or simply did not want to face retribution. There would be no evidence either way, nothing but Alex himself, and he could be blackmailed into silence."

Of course. The more Ben learned about that entire situation, the more he understood the angry, desperate teenager he had met during the attack on Santa Catarina. The child who would rather have faced death than end up in Blunt's hands again.

Put like that, Ben would probably have chosen the same thing.

Had Alex Rider had _anyone_ in his corner at MI6? Smithers, Ben suspected, but Smithers had been in no position to help or had, like most sensible people, had no desire to cross Alan Blunt.

And this was the career Ben had chosen. The career he had given up the SAS for.

For the first time, Ben genuinely regretted it.

"The intelligence world is a ruthless place," Smithers said and sounded almost sympathetic. "Some simply take longer to realise this than others."

Like Ben himself, maybe. Or maybe there were others out there, others like him who still believed that since they worked for the 'good' side, there would be nothing questionable going on around them. Alex Rider had certainly learned fast enough. Blackmail by an intelligence agency would do that, Ben supposed.

Smithers tapped his watch in a silent signal. The mosquito-like hum from the pen faded a few seconds later.

"- I admit, it could be useful for a number of other things but the charge required to power it is quite significant," Smithers said the moment surveillance came back on, like they had done nothing but talk gadgets those few minutes. "The pen there will give you no more than twenty minutes of use before the battery is drained."

Ben picked up his part of the conversation without hesitation. "Well, seventeen minutes now, I guess. It's still enough to get the job done. Thanks. I'll get it back to you in one piece."

Smithers nodded. "Come back in two days and the rest will be ready. Now go home, Agent Daniels. Your paperwork will still be here tomorrow."

Home, all alone with his thoughts. That sounded like about the last thing Ben wanted right now. He still nodded and left, wondering just when exactly child soldiers had become an acceptable means to an end to the people supposed to protect those kids in the first place.

* * *

Tom Harris went to Naples for an extended weekend in March. Had it been Venice and a year and a half prior, Tulip Jones would have sent a full surveillance team with the boy. As it was, Jerry Harris currently lived in Naples and SCORPIA's activities in Italy – what remained of them after the move from Malagosto Island – focused on the northern parts of the country. They had a generally amiable relationship with the Italian underworld and left southern Italy to them.

With the Harris household under surveillance, MI6 knew about those plans before Tom Harris himself did. Tulip had the full recording of Jerry Harris' conversation with his mother about it. It didn't tell them much of interest but did confirm what Tulip already knew – neither of the Harris sons were on all that good terms with their parents.

The mandatory pleasantries had been strained, and the rest of the conversation hadn't been much better.

" _I'm inviting Tom to Italy next weekend. Thursday after school and home again Sunday evening."_ It had been a statement of fact, not asking for permission to bring his sixteen-year-old brother to the other side of Europe for a break with a week's notice.

" _Jerry! Just because your brother did the sensible thing and found himself an after-school job to save up some money doesn't mean he can just pay however much for a plane ticket because you decided he should visit."_

" _Mum, it's off-season; tickets are dirt cheap, and I'm paying."_ Harris sounded exasperated. _"Besides, I already bought it and it's not refundable. If I want to spend my money on my baby brother, that's my business."_

" _He has school. You may be able to just take off when you want to, but your brother -"_

" _Yeah, well, neither of you cared all that much about his precious education when you were busy arguing, did you? It's one damn Friday. He'll catch up on homework just fine and I know for a fact he missed out on a lot more homework when he couldn't concentrate because you two were shouting all night."_

" _Your father -"_

" _No. You know what? I don't care. I've spent enough time listening to those arguments and worrying they were my fault for not being good enough. You spent just as much time shouting as dad did. Tom is going. It's cheaper than therapy, and frankly, he'll need that, too."_

Tulip Jones wondered just how often the older Harris sibling had been through similar arguments about something inconsequential or another. He cut off his mother with the practised ease and complete lack of care of someone who knew from painful experience that listening and arguing his case would do no good. Harris wasn't asking permission, he was simply letting his mother know why his brother would be gone for the weekend.

The conversation had gone downhill from there, but Tom Harris had been allowed to leave. Maybe because his mother knew it was a lost cause. Jerry Harris was used to his parents and Tulip doubted he had any problems playing one parent out against the other if he had to.

Tom Harris was in contact with Jack Starbright but that didn't mean much these days. Not enough to justify a full surveillance team for him. A year ago. Maybe even half a year ago. Now, after Starbright had been kidnapped and now resided at Malagosto, while no one had so much as looked at Harris …

There had been a time when Tulip would have sent a full surveillance team with Harris. As it was, she settled for three people. Enough to keep an eye on one teenager for a weekend and not draw attention. It would just have to be good enough.

* * *

It wasn't Joe Byrne's first visit to Johannesburg. He rather liked the place, and of the three choices offered for the meeting, well, he wasn't _that_ fond of Riyadh and he preferred to stay out of Russia.

Far more interesting from Joe's point of view was the reason for the meeting. SCORPIA didn't care about 'clearing the air' or 'smoothing things over'. SCORPIA cared about profit, nothing else. Of course, SCORPIA had also just had most of its executive board assassinated and the organisation left under new management, so he could be wrong.

Just as interesting was the representative. SCORPIA had made no secret of the fact that the representative for the meeting would be Alex Rider; sixteen years old and recently promoted second in command of Yassen Gregorovich.

Joe could think of several reasons why SCORPIA – why Gregorovich – would send Rider as a representative, each more intriguing that the other.

It was definitely a message; the only question was what it meant.

The obvious answer was a display of power. _This is mine, I created this; took the only child of the man who betrayed me and turned him into a loyal, obedient killer,_ but Joe didn't think that was it. If Gregorovich wanted to make that sort of point, using Rider as his bodyguard or personal assassin would be much more effective. He wouldn't need to promote the kid to the highest levels of SCORPIA's hierarchy.

The other reasonable answer was the one Joe's analysts favoured. Not merely revenge but a combination of multiple factors. Gregorovich might have broken the kid in the name of revenge but he had turned out useful enough to become more than just another weapon in Gregorovich's arsenal. A display of power combined with a gesture of goodwill and pure, practical ruthlessness. _You know_ _what I could have done, this is what I chose to do instead._ Alex Rider had earned a surprising amount of favour during his missions for MI6. His presence at Gregorovich's side might make those aware of his history more inclined to look favourably upon SCORPIA as well.

The less obvious possibility was Joe's personal favourite, his own little pet theory that he got increasingly sure about with every added piece of the puzzle.

Gregorovich had plans for Rider. Sure, the kid was sixteen but Gregorovich himself hadn't been that much older when SCORPIA had found him, and his age made him flexible. The kid had been a pawn in Riyadh. Now, with the sort of influence he wielded and the kind of security they had spotted, SCORPIA clearly considered Alex Rider an investment. Given that the executive board seemed to have been cut down to two people, that didn't leave too many people who could be behind that sort of move.

Three was as sharp as ever but he was approaching retirement – the man certainly wasn't getting any younger – and he already had a second in command trained to predict and obey his every whim. That left Gregorovich, and if Joe wasn't mistaken, those plans reached well beyond just keeping the kid around as his assistant.

Joe would put good money on this whole charade being a training exercise for Rider. If it went well, great, SCORPIA would be on better terms with the CIA. If it didn't … it wasn't like the CIA would stop doing business with them. Joe's bosses had used them before and would do so again. That convenience was worth ignoring a few issues for.

If he was right … well, Joe couldn't say it was the worst option. Rider had been trained by Gregorovich but there had still been something of the kid left in there the last time they met. Sure, Gregorovich would have plenty of time to ensure that bit of humanity got removed, but Joe wasn't sure he would entirely succeed. If it was still there now, he hoped the odds were decent that SCORPIA might end up with a reasonably sane, stable individual on the board when Rider was old enough.

Assuming, of course, that he was right.

Joe had a lot of questions he wanted to ask the kid, and most of them he would never voice. He still hadn't forgotten about mail he'd received with the warning about their operation in Dubai, for one. They had managed to get all six agents safely out of there in time but the debriefing had left them no closer to an explanation. There had been no sign that SCORPIA was on to them, no hint that anything was wrong. Another day and all six of them would have simply vanished without a trace, never to be seen again.

Joe suspected Rider had been behind that warning. He didn't know the reasons and would never be able to just flat-out ask, not without risking the kid's life in the process, but he was almost sure it had been Rider. None of SCORPIA's people had any motive to help, and only the kid might have enough of that spark of humanity left to take a risk for half a dozen people he had never even met.

Maybe Joe thought of Alex Rider too much like the kid he had first met, but he liked to think he was right about him. He wasn't going to write off the possibility, at least, and he expected he would have a much better idea of the kid once the meeting was over with.

Like in Riyadh, Joe arrived with security; CIA protocol allowed for nothing else. Not that he minded. He had an impressive amount of enemies and a number of attempted assassinations under his belt already.

Alex Rider had arrived alone in Riyadh. Now he was accompanied by a man in his mid-to-late twenties, tanned, with dark hair and the build and bearing of a soldier. Unlike Joe's security, he hadn't bothered to try to pass for a lowly assistant.

Joe's team was already on it. If they knew Rider's bodyguard from previous operations, they would have a name before the meeting was over.

As it turned out, it only took about the same time as it took Joe to settle down by the table.

" _We've got an ID. Adán Valadez, codenamed Shale,"_ Martino said in Joe's ear. _"Sniper, twenty-eight, born in Avilés, Spain. He was in the Spanish army, went AWOL six years ago where he's believed to have been recruited by one of SCORPIA's mercenary companies. He's part of Rider's personal combat team; they were present on Santa Catarina as well."_

That clusterfuck again. Joe expected the fall-out from that particular operation to linger for a while. It also explained how they got the man identified so fast. The CIA had put together surprisingly solid files on as much of the SCORPIA personnel on the island as they could. It was interesting, though. Not Valadez himself but what he represented. Joe would wonder about the sort of world where a sixteen-year-old – and fifteen back then – needed a personal combat team but then, it had become pretty obvious that SCORPIA was moving Rider into position for some pretty heavy responsibility.

Personal combat team, probably with some executive protection training if Valadez's mannerism was anything to go by. Possibly his security team as well, then.

Not for show, either. The threats against the boy were dangerously real, and not just from outside enemies. Joe pushed that thought aside, though, and focused on the present instead.

"Alex Rider," he greeted.

"Deputy Director Byrne," Rider answered.

The words were a perfect mirror of their last meeting and Joe couldn't help a flicker of amusement. Maybe it wasn't deliberate but he suspected it was. Calm, understated sass, about as much as the kid could get away with.

Joe had kind of missed that. It didn't change the fact of who and what Alex Rider was, though.

"Gregorovich's right hand. You've moved up in the world." More than any of them had ever expected. Most had written Rider off as expendable; Gregorovich's way to make a brutal, bloody point to the world. They had been forced to re-evaluate that with the kid's promotion. "I have to admit, I hadn't expected to see you again."

Not with the amount of people hunting him. Not with the amount of enemies he had. Not with Yassen Gregorovich watching his every move, ready to act in an instant if Rider fell short of his expectations.

The kid shrugged. "I've had a good mentor."

A _good mentor_ , if anyone could call Yassen Gregorovich that, and the luck of the Devil himself on his side. Alex Rider had already outlived most guesses Joe had heard regarding his life expectancy, and his situation just kept getting more dangerous.

Sixteen years old. He acted years older, the trained killer and operative that he was, but he belonged in school, doing stupid things with his friends and going through all the awkwardness of his teenage years in the safe embrace of a loving family.

Alex Rider had none of that. Reading between the lines in his file, it was debatable if he ever did.

Joe couldn't quite help a slight frown at that thought and pushed it aside in favour of business. Rider had made his choice. A bad one, probably under coercion, but there was little anyone could do to help him these days. All Joe could do was hope that he was right about Gregorovich's plans, because while a high rank within SCORPIA came with an impressive number of enemies, it also came with security to match, and Rider would need that. That luck wouldn't always be enough.

"I was equally surprised," Joe continued, "to be contacted about a meeting to _clear the air._ "

Because SCORPIA didn't care a damn bit so long as business kept coming and they got paid on time, and they were well aware that some of the services they offered could be provided by very few other companies. The right amount of money – a _lot_ of it – wouldn't just buy an assassination or a government coup or a terrorist attack, but unlimited access to the full resources that SCORPIA had available. Even with the recent upheaval, they were still the biggest freelance terrorist organisation on the planet. They had access to a bigger army than a number of legitimate countries and trained some of the best operatives around. Well, the best that weren't attached to an intelligence agency, anyway.

SCORPIA didn't give a damn if the CIA held a grudge. If Joe's bosses needed a big enough job done, it was pretty much down to SCORPIA or Glaive, and Glaive had just as many marks against them in the CIA's book.

There were other motives at play and Joe got increasingly sure he was right with every second he watched the kid.

Rider shifted almost imperceptibly. Joe wondered if he was even aware of it. "Your agents were unfortunately caught up in – unavoidable events. SCORPIA regrets that course of events. It will not happen again."

So careful. The kid clearly had instructions and plenty of reasons to be careful about what he said, and just as clearly had little to no experience dealing with that sort of thing. That was as close to an apology as Joe had ever heard from any one of SCORPIA's people, and Rider spoke on behalf of Gregorovich. He would want to keep a careful balance between getting the point across and not lose face in the process.

It was very interesting to Joe, though. The way SCORPIA now distanced itself from the actions of the old board.

"Zeljan Kurst acted without the unanimous agreement of the executive board, then?" Joe asked though he already knew the answer. Or rather, knew what the answer would be.

"He did. The issue has been resolved."

The answer Joe had expected. It could be a lie but who could say otherwise when most of the board was dead and the surviving two members had clearly decided on the truth as they wished to present it?

The body that had arrived on Joe's doorstep was certainly a pretty big hint that prior agreement with plans or not, the board had clearly decided to disavow any part in Kurst's actions.

Of course, the CIA weren't the only people caught up in that mess. Joe had watched the kid since his arrival and while he hid it well, he was injured. Chest injury, like it had been in Riyadh. Joe wondered if it had been the same reason, too. There was only so much a bulletproof vest could do at point blank range.

"And does that resolution have anything to do with your chest injury?" Joe asked. "You're developing a bit of a habit when it comes to these meetings."

"It was a bullet through the lung," the kid admitted. "Your agents and Jack weren't the only ones caught up in Kurst's plans."

Significantly worse than Riyadh, then. Joe supposed that fit with the timeline, come to think of it. It had been almost two months since Starbright's kidnapping; one and half since that body arrived by way of apology. Shot through the lung … yeah, it would still bother him even now. Mostly healed but not completely. That also explained why the meeting had been a little later than Joe would have expected for something like that. If SCORPIA had been determined to have Rider as the representative – and why delay otherwise? - it would have demanded a couple of months to get him well enough to handle it.

It smelled like politics to Joe. Whatever Kurst's plans had been, Rider was a damn valuable operative. The combination of his training and age made him priceless to the right people. He would not have been targeted lightly. It smelled personal, Starbright's kidnapping and all. John Rider had been a deep cover agent and Kurst had been a malicious bull of a killer. Joe wouldn't put it past him to have wanted to make Rider pay for his father's actions.

"SCORPIA's internal politics were always deadly." Joe commented, fishing lightly for information to see if the kid would bite.

"Kurst never let go of his grudge against my father." A perfectly safe response and another thing to push the blame unto Kurst, and another argument for Joe's theory as to what was going on.

Rider was important. It wasn't just that it was personal, it was the fact that the kid had drawn the ire of _Zeljan Kurst_ and was still alive. Someone had protected him and they had done it for a reason. Gregorovich was not a sentimental man. That left the possibility that he had plans – important plans – for Rider instead.

Joe still hadn't seen anything to make him discard that little theory of his.

"His file is one that most of the intelligence world will be pleased to close." Hundreds dead by Kurst's own hand, hundreds more as collateral damage. Kurst had been lethal and his security team had been even worse.

The kid shifted. Joe was almost sure he had been the one to pull that trigger. Gregorovich was probably pleased about that one. If they really did have plans for Rider, being known as the person who killed Zeljan Kurst would do wonders for his reputation.

"I have a little pet theory you might be able to help me with," Joe continued, still keeping his mannerism light and easy-going. "In the interest of _clearing the air_ and all."

The kid didn't answer. Joe had expected that and carried right on.

"There has been quite the mess surrounding your executive board the past half a year or so. Kroll was a direct strike against the board. Yu's death was expected, he'd made a lot of enemies, but I've started to suspect that was an inside job as well. Duval was a nice little setup, blaming the French – got them pretty pissed about it, too – but my gut feeling tells me that Gregorovich had a hand in that. Mikato's assassination, too. My analysts like to play it safe, of course, but I think I'm right about those two. I think we can credit you with Kurst's removal – my guess is that he kidnapped Starbright for his little games and backed you into a corner in the process – and no one has seen even the shadow of Chase for several months. I would say his death has been all but confirmed as well. That leaves Gregorovich and Three, which is a bit of a change from the old kind of management."

Rider listened cautiously through Joe's explanation. Only when he fell silent did the kid speak.

"Those would be the broad strokes," he agreed.

Joe had expected that. Rider had probably expected Joe to have expected it, too. Intelligence work could be a headache sometimes.

"The thing is," Joe continued, "your bosses have never really cared about cultivating good business relationships. Money speaks louder than words. Someone is showing you off, and if Gregorovich just wanted to make a point of how thoroughly he's got you trained, he would have made a better impact using you as his bodyguard instead of his representative. They showed you off in Riyadh, too, but you were just the messenger back then. My little theory, then: You're valuable to Gregorovich and he's got plans for you. SCORPIA is under new management. The old board made mistakes; big enough that a number of governments had started to take too much of an interest in the operations. You're new blood and you don't have a bad history with us, so they sent you to ease the transition and assure us that it's back to business as it used to be. Your bosses will take any advantage they can get. Whatever you might be now, you saved a lot of people, too. They know we'll at least listen to you."

Rider did a pretty good job keeping his emotions under wrap but Joe could still pick up enough to tell the kid was a little unsettled.

"… That's about the sum of it," he admitted.

Joe allowed himself to feel smug. Just a little, and only for a few seconds; the satisfaction of getting it right. The kid could be lying but Joe doubted it. He nodded and made a slight gesture in a silent _go on_. "I figured as much. Speak your piece, Rider."

A little unsettled but recovering fast. When the kid spoke, his voice was perfectly even.

"The old board made mistakes. Mr Gregorovich and Dr Three have put a stop to that. SCORPIA will return to what it used to be – just another part of the intelligence community. SCORPIA will no longer accept contracts for terrorist attacks. We will no longer deliberately target civilians. We will, however, still defend ourselves if attacked."

Those were very pretty words that still left a lot of very pretty loopholes. Classic SCORPIA, experience had taught Joe that much. "I can't help but notice that left out a lot of other illegal little operations."

"They haven't been a problem for you before," the kid said and his voice had a bite to it that it hadn't before. Spiteful. Bitter. No, Gregorovich hadn't entirely broken him yet. "You were perfectly happy to hire us to get rid of unfortunate problems until the board got a little too ambitious. No one even looked in our direction until then."

 _Us. Our._ An interesting choice of words. Deliberate to avoid crossing Gregorovich or simply a sign that Rider had fully embraced his position, Joe wasn't sure. Still, interesting choice of words.

" _Us,_ " Joe murmured. Judging by Rider's slight, uneasy shift, he may not even have been aware of exactly what he had said. "Kurst had eight of my agents executed; people who weren't even trained for undercover work."

The brutal truth was that it was a risk of the job and any high-ranking operative would have dismissed it as that. Rider's response would be educational.

"They were obviously trained enough in _something_ to know how to use Jack as bait."

Joe was pretty sure Gregorovich would not have approved of the bitterness in the kid's voice. He wouldn't be surprised if the kid blamed them in part for what had happened to Starbright. They were a convenient scapegoat and teenagers weren't known for being rational … which, in someone like Rider, with full access to SCORPIA's resources, could be a serious problem.

Time to provoke him a little, then. It wouldn't be a guarantee that the kid wouldn't go off the rails later, but if he lost his temper from just a small bit of goading, something had to be done. Joe liked him but not enough to risk another Zeljan Kurst.

"It was business. Nothing personal. That's SCORPIA's approach, too, I believe." Eight dead agents, all of whom Joe had known personally. He had still spent enough years in intelligence service to be able to push that aside and give the impression that he didn't care at all.

Rider almost took the bait. Joe saw him open his mouth and snap it close again a second later without a word. He couldn't read the kid well enough to catch every minute shift in his expression but Rider was a smart kid and Joe knew that mind of his was working fast.

The seconds stretched on. Finally Rider breathed out slowly. He looked a little unsettled, barely enough to notice, but Joe had watched him closely.

"… Did you get the answer you wanted?"

Yeah, he had worked it out, then. Clever kid, like Joe knew he was, and his lips twisted into something that wasn't quite a smile. It was one thing to know Gregorovich had plans. It was something very different to see for himself that Rider had already lost a good bit of that teenage impulsiveness. Given a decade, hell, even half a decade, that boy would be a force to be reckoned with.

It was still a bit of a way to go, and Joe might be wrong, but he was willing to give the kid the benefit of the doubt. Not a threat for now, then. No more of a threat than what they forced him to be, anyway, and Joe was pretty damn sure the kid was not the type to target innocents just to get even.

"Well, I'm pretty sure you're not an immediate threat to the US or her interests. I'm not so sure about Blunt but that's not my problem."

Blunt's mess, Blunt's problem. What Alex Rider felt about MI6 and his former home, well, that wasn't Joe's headache.

Joe leaned forward slightly and allowed himself to relax. Just slightly. "I don't agree with Gregorovich's actions, but that's not my problem, either. I think we can live with you. Let's talk business and see what we'll have to work with."

Sink or swim, that had always been SCORPIA's approach to its operatives. You learned to keep up or you paid the price. Looking at Rider, Joe suspected he would do just fine.

* * *

Moray Paterson had been responsible for Joe Byrne's security for six years. It hadn't always been an easy job, and Moray had been a little relieved when his boss stayed increasingly behind his desk where he belonged.

A personal meeting with Yassen Gregorovich's hand-picked little pit viper of an apprentice was not on the list of Moray-approved Joe Byrne activities. A baby pit viper, sure, not much older than Moray's youngest sister, but still a trained killer.

He didn't speak during the meeting. Neither did Rider's bodyguard, for that matter. Only when Rider had left, and Moray and Byrne left the hotel, did he finally break the silence.

"You believe him, boss?" Moray asked those last few seconds of quiet and privacy before they met up with the rest of their security.

Byrne seemed to consider the question. Moray didn't rush him. Sometimes the man liked to talk things through with someone and Moray was a pretty good listener.

"Any other case, I'd say no," Byrne finally admitted. "This one … I met Kurst once. Beady-eyed sociopath and grade A sadist. He already had an impressive body count while he was supposedly on the side of the angels. Yeah, I believe the kid. Kurst was just the sort of person who would target a fifteen-year-old kid for something his long-dead father did on MI6's orders."

Charming. At least that was one more terrorist out of circulation. He wondered if the kid would get whatever reward someone had undoubtedly stuck on Kurst's head. Wouldn't that be ironic?

Moray held the door open to the car. Let his boss get inside before he followed. Byrne brought out his laptop and set to work, writing up anything of relevance from the meeting.

Occasionally he threw a question Moray's way but mostly the car was silent. They had another meeting in three hours. Since they were in Johannesburg, anyway, Byrne took the chance to check up on a few other things in person.

The silence was broken by the voice of Martino in Moray's ear. The way Byrne looked up told him that they both heard.

" _Someone just tried to take Rider out. Roadside bomb, pretty big, on the way to the airport. Emergency services are en route."_

Airport. That was to the back of them by now. Moray twisted around and spotted the column of smoke that rose tall and dark from somewhere in the maze of buildings. Someone had meant business. Moray wasn't exactly a fan of terrorists or Gregorovich's little pit viper but that didn't change the fact that someone had just tried to kill a sixteen-year-old kid.

"Rider?" Byrne asked.

" _We think he got out of it. According to police, a Land Cruiser forced its way past the blast area. It had to have been pretty heavily armoured to handle that. We don't know for sure yet, though."_

Byrne didn't react, not that Moray could see. "Keep me updated."

A heartbeat. Another. Byrne glanced at him. "How many people knew about this meeting?"

"Theoretically? General security. Your people. Mine." Moray paused. "That doesn't tell us shit, though. We've had leaks before. You know that, boss."

For money, for personal convictions, for revenge, or sometimes just to make themselves seem important. People had all sorts of reasons, most of them not worth it in the end.

Byrne closed his eyes briefly. "Yes. I know." Another heartbeat. "If the leak is with us, _find it._ I don't care about the methods. Start with my team. Anyone gives you any trouble, I'll handle it. SCORPIA can't afford to look weak, not now, not after all of this. Gregorovich will consider this a personal attack. If the leak is with us and we don't find it, he'll take matters into his own hands."

Moray could just imagine how well that would go. He nodded. "And if it's with them?"

Byrne's answering smile was hard and grim. "Internal matter, then. I expect we'll be able to remove a few more names from the wanted lists by the end of it. They'll probably take advantage of it and clear out a few other people they want to get rid of as well while they're at it."

A lot of death. A lot of blood. No one that Moray cared about, though. Not his headache. He had plenty of those already.

"We're upping your security," Moray said, more of a statement than asking for permission.

Byrne just looked resigned. "I expected as much."

Maybe Moray could convince him to stay behind his desk until it was all over with. Make it enough of a headache to go anywhere and he should eventually just give up. Moray even had an excuse to do it now.

Stick the boss behind the desk. Then start hunting. Moray would talk it over with his own people, work out the best way to approach it. It had been a while since they'd last had to do something like this. It would be good practice for all of them.

Byrne leaned back in the seat. Closed his eyes.

" _Fuck_ ," he said, low and heartfelt. Moray didn't argue. Some assassinations had sparked actual wars between various drug cartels in the past. He doubted SCORPIA would be any different.

Neither of them spoke much for the rest of the ride.

Behind them, the column of smoke kept rising.

* * *

Next: How is it that someone else tries to kill Alex, but he gets stuck with all the work?


	84. Responsibilities

Alex took the easiest bit of Yassen's advice. He curled up in bed, forgot about the world outside, and slept for five hours straight.

He woke up to a brief message that his attendance was expected during lunch and a short, concise update on the situation in Johannesburg. Law enforcement was looking into things, as expected. So was SCORPIA, and the CIA as well.

Maybe that meant they hadn't been behind it. Maybe it meant that they were behind it but that it had been classified enough that most in the CIA didn't know. Maybe it was just a way to make Alex _think_ they had nothing to do with it. Maybe he should just stop guessing before he gave himself a headache.

Sometimes Alex Rider really missed the days before he got a little too familiar with paranoia and a spy's way of thinking.

Alex stayed in the shower until his fingers started to get wrinkled. Only then did he get out – reluctantly – and found a clean set of clothes with no small amount of relief. He knew there was no way the smell of the smoke and explosives could have made its way into the car but it still felt like it clung to his clothes and skin somehow.

By noon he felt … better. The talk with Yassen had helped. So had a nap and a shower. He felt a little more stable again. A little more ready to face the world.

He spent so long in the shower, in fact, that he was almost late. Alex entered an almost-full dining hall to find Yassen and Dr Three discussing something or another at one of the staff tables, all calm body language as they quite deliberately paid no attention to effects their presence had on the rest of the room.

Malagosto and her staff and students were used to Dr Three but even then they never let down their guard when the man was present. With Yassen Gregorovich there as well – the _entire executive board_ these days – the tension was so thick Alex could almost feel it. The students were all very quiet, very alert, and looked ready to bolt at a moment's notice. The staff looked somewhat more at ease, though even Oliver d'Arc's normal, exuberant personality was significantly more subdued than normal. Jack looked … mildly annoyed more than anything, if only to someone as familiar with her as Alex was. It was probably from the lack of sleep and having her lunch ruined by stupid politics. And, to Alex's surprise, he spotted Marcus next to Crux at the same table as Yassen and the doctor, looking more than a little twitchy about the entire situation in the most calm, polite way he could manage.

Alex almost laughed and he made his way through the room in a bit of a better mood. That sort of company was nothing he wasn't used to and he had picked up enough of Yassen's slightly sadistic sense of humour to enjoy seeing everyone else squirm for a change.

 _Yeah, well, welcome to my life._

He wondered how Yassen would react if he whistled a little on the way. He would probably be amused, too.

"Sir," he greeted as he reached the table. "Doctor."

He focused on the two most important people in the room and ignored Marcus and Crux for now. He strongly suspected Marcus would prefer to stay ignored, too. Up close, his tension was all the more obvious. Neither Crux nor Marcus spoke and conversation at the neighbouring table was very quiet and excruciatingly professional from the snippets that Alex caught.

Yassen simply nodded in return. He didn't look like someone who had been up in the middle of the night but Alex hadn't expected him to, either. He personally thought that being able to manage on four hours of sleep was the sign of someone obviously not completely human, but that didn't stop him from being a little envious of it.

Dr Three smiled, that kind little gesture that made him look entirely too harmless for someone who probably had a couple of research subject and an RTI student locked away at that very moment.

"Alex. Do sit down. It's good to see you well. Dreadful events in Johannesburg, of course, but to be expected after everything. It was only a matter of time before someone attempted to take advantage of our recent, perceived loss of strength."

The sad part was that Alex couldn't actually argue with that. He had just expected Yassen or the doctor to be that initial target, not himself.

There was a single available seat between Yassen and Marcus. Alex settled into it with all the grace he could manage after long, tired days and took the brief respite to work out the politics at play.

Yassen had wanted the meeting with the CIA handled before he left Malagosto again; the chance to debrief and deliver any criticism to Alex in person. A civilised lunch with Dr Three was … unusual. Most of the time any of the board members had met outside of full meetings, it had been safely away from prying eyes, at least according to Yassen. It was an obvious signal to everyone, then, that the alliance held for now and that the executive board – was what left of it – was as strong as ever. That they valued calm and stability. A reminder to those who might get tempted to take advantage of things that it would be suicide to do so. Malagosto's staff was loyal and trusted but also in an unusually good position to make a move against those higher up in the system if they decided it was worth it. So were the students, for that matter. The headmaster Yassen had studied under had been killed by one of his own students. It would not be the first time a promotion was 'encouraged' through an assassination or two.

Alex wondered if anyone would try. No one was stupid enough to target Dr Three, but d'Arc or Dwale or Crux or Alex himself, especially if it could be done without leaving evidence behind … well. Maybe Yassen or the doctor wouldn't be pleased but there would still be a position to fill. Better to discourage that sort of thing immediately.

Would anyone still try? After today, after seeing the students now, Alex doubted it. Crossing Yassen and Dr Three, not just colleagues in name only but obvious allies, would be too much of a risk.

A plate appeared in front of him courtesy of a silent waiter. Alex doubted he would ever be able to spend any time at the school and not wonder, just briefly, if the food was poisoned. The food, the water, the _air -_

Alex Rider had slept a lot better at the school before he saw Graff's drug demonstrated in person.

Alex had learned to hide his emotions. He wasn't always successful but he had learned. He didn't doubt both Yassen and Dr Three could see right through him, anyway.

He picked up his knife and fork. He might never entirely trust the food any more but his stomach clearly didn't have the same sense of self-preservation.

Dr Three continued, ignoring Alex's discomfort. "Fortunately, there is a simple solution. SCORPIA's strength has been challenged; we merely have to hunt down those responsible and find a suitable method of retaliation to convince them of their miscalculation."

 _Simple. Merely._ He made it sound so easy. Yassen didn't speak and Alex didn't really expect him to. Yassen was not a social person. He had no problem leaving the small talk and little games to the doctor.

Lunch was light and a bit fancier than usual, probably because of Dr Three and Yassen's presence. Alex dredged up the manners he remembered, buried well beneath thoughts of security and assassination attempts and the dozens of reports he had waiting for him. Everything was a test, he knew. Even this. With the Countess' lessons, there was no excuse for bad manners.

Like Yu had done, Dr Three wielded the utensils with the sharp precision of surgical tools. With Yassen, even a simple silver knife was a potential weapon. With the doctor, it was a potential instrument of torture. Alex suppressed a shudder and focused on his plate.

The silence at the table felt suffocating. Crux hadn't spoken a word and her body language was all respectful caution in a way it usually wasn't. She was respectful around the doctor but never to that extreme. At the neighbouring table, d'Arc's tension was all the more apparent. Even Ross looked on edge.

Alex suspected Dr Three found it genuinely amusing because it took a long time before the man spoke again. "Commander."

Marcus looked up immediately. This close, Alex could _see_ the strain in his muscles, fight or flight instincts on high alert. He couldn't blame him. Beyond a brief meeting with Dr Three after Miami, Marcus' very first interaction with the board had been the report to Zeljan Kurst after Santa Catarina. This little mission hadn't gone catastrophically bad but Sagitta had still been responsible for Alex's security, and Alex had very nearly been killed. Adams had been in charge on the ground but the final say had been Marcus', injuries or not. Alex doubted Dr Three or Yassen were about to punish Marcus for it but in his place, Alex would still have been pretty damn twitchy, too.

"Sir?"

"You supervised the meeting and have had time to consider what followed. What is your impression?"

"The leak wasn't one of ours." Tense or not, Marcus' voice held nothing but absolute certainty. "It was a rush job. The snipers were mediocre, they could have found better ways to target us than that bomb, and they seemed to make up for the lack of time to prepare by using more explosives. I think that whoever it was got the intel on short notice and had to work fast. They also didn't know for sure what route we would take. The teams in Johannesburg found signs of other potential ambush sites. They worked with what they had but if the leak came from us, they would have had more intel to go on."

It was a sound conclusion. Marcus hadn't had much time to put things together but between Adams and the teams still in Johannesburg, it had been enough to make a pretty good guess of things.

Dr Three nodded slowly. Yassen glanced at Alex.

"Alex."

He didn't need to elaborate. Alex could read him well enough to decipher the meaning behind his name for the most part.

"It could have been deliberate to create a false lead and lure us away from the actual mole but yes, sir, I agree. If they just wanted to hide their tracks, they could have done it and still passed on more intel than that. It could have worked, the bomb was strong enough for that and the snipers could have handled it otherwise, but it wasn't guaranteed. If they wanted me dead badly enough to go through that sort of trouble and draw SCORPIA's attention in the process, they would have wanted to make sure it was worth it, at least. That the mission actually succeeded. Someone on the CIA's side passed on the intel but they didn't know a lot about our plans. They knew the location because the CIA did but they didn't know all of our security measures."

Byrne had chosen Johannesburg but the hotel hadn't been picked until later. How many of his people had known? How close had Byrne kept that information? Alex's security had known, as had Yassen and Dr Three for obvious reasons, but outside of that it had been heavily classified. Had Byrne been just as cautious?

Yassen nodded slightly, enough to let Alex know he agreed with the conclusion.

"It was not the usual approach the CIA would have favoured. They are somewhat squeamish about collateral damage. Someone challenged SCORPIA. As you were the target, it seems appropriate that you are given the task of hunting them down."

"Sir," Alex agreed. He managed to keep back the sigh that threatened to slip out, mostly because he had expected it. It seemed like just the sort of thing Yassen would consider an educational opportunity. Lots of hard work. Lots of learning on the job, and he better learn it fast if he didn't want to fail.

Cold, blue eyes shifted to Alex's left side. "Commander."

Marcus tensed again, so slightly Alex doubted he would have noticed if he hadn't been right next to him.

"Do not let him out of sight." Yassen's order, calm and deliberate, did nothing to hide the unspoken promise of just what would happen if someone made another attempt on Alex's life when it could have been stopped. "Orion attracts trouble. Handle it."

"Sir." Marcus' voice was steady. At least it was a straight-forward order and the chance to prove they could handle the job.

"SCORPIA has a number of enemies," Dr Three said when Yassen fell silent. "You, yourself, have made a number of them on your own as well, Alex. Allies, too, of course, but for an operative of your age, you have a remarkable number of people who would dearly like to exchange words with you."

Dr Three sounded somehow pleased about that, like it was some sort of badge of approval. Maybe it was to someone like him who seemed to genuinely enjoy the number of people he could terrify just by introducing himself.

All Alex could think about was just how many people might have been behind that attack. He could rule out a few, maybe, but not that many. If MI6 decided he was enough of a risk, Alex didn't doubt Blunt would have given the order and not for a moment cared about everyone else caught up in the blast. It wasn't the CIA's usual approach and they at least tried to keep collateral damage down but even they would do it if they deemed it important enough. And SCORPIA's enemies in general; competitors, former allies, or just people with a grudge … they wouldn't care at all if fifty or a hundred innocent lives were lost if it meant taking out someone important enough. Alex wasn't on the executive board but he was valuable to Yassen – hand-picked, personally trained, and hideously expensive to replace – and that made him a target.

Had he been targeted for something he had done himself or because of Yassen? Another thing they didn't know and which would complicate things. Alex had enemies but Yassen's list of them was staggering. While most were sensible enough not to cross Cossack, it wasn't all of them, and some would take whatever chance they could for revenge.

At least it probably wasn't someone's idea of making room for a promotion. That was not the sort of thing the average operative could even begin to arrange.

Sometimes Alex missed how much more simple things had been with MI6. He hadn't liked it, he had almost died way more times than he liked to think about, and he had made enemies there as well, but – a lot less than he had with SCORPIA.

"We will find a suitable approach based on those responsible," Dr Three continued. "A personal attack calls for personal retribution. For SCORPIA's own enemies, there are other ways to encourage a suitable sense of terror. It has been a while since those methods were last required. It would be a delightful change of pace. Quite instructional for our students, too."

That just made Alex infinitely grateful he had already graduated Malagosto … right up until he remembered a few seconds later that whatever that retribution would be, he would end up in the middle of it whether he wanted to or not. If he was responsible for hunting them down, he doubted he would be allowed to avoid the retaliation part that followed.

At least Jack would get to avoid that. He glanced at the rest of the dining hall and found her in an instant; warm, wary eyes meeting his own for the brief second he dared to focus on something other than the doctor.

The ghost of a smile, a curl of warmth in his chest, and his focus snapped back to Dr Three as the man moved. There hadn't been much on the man's plate to begin with and he had finished lunch while they talked. Alex suspected the times the doctor visited the dining hall he did so to keep people on edge and not for the food.

Dr Three put his knife and fork down with that creepy, surgical precision. Folded his napkin.

"Fortunately," he said, "our people in Johannesburg have managed to capture one of the snipers alive. I imagine he will be quite the useful source of information. One of your security teams is en route with him and is expected to arrive this afternoon. You will be responsible for him during his stay. Ensure we won't lose him to unfortunate events."

The update Alex got hadn't mentioned that but things happened so fast that it could very well have been a recent development.

 _Unfortunate events._ Make sure the sniper didn't try to kill himself, Alex understood that just fine. Dr Three made it sound so harmless, like that sniper wasn't going to be tortured until he broke or died, and in the doctor's hands, dying could take a long time.

"Yes, sir," he agreed in lack of anything else to say. He had a sudden bad feeling about the whole thing and he couldn't do anything about it.

The doctor smiled. Nodded at Yassen in greeting and received a nod in return. Then he got up and Alex felt the first bit of tension ease just slightly.

"And Alex …" Dr Three waited until Alex looked up before he continued. "We expect you to handle the interrogation."

 _\- Water; burning lungs and his vision closing in; coughing until his throat was raw and he was throwing up, until his entire world had narrowed down to the raw horror of drowning, and then it **started all over -**_

Alex swallowed against his sudden, instinctive panic. Felt the tendrils of fear wrap around his lungs and tighten in a silent reminder. Remembered Crux in Singapore, Dr Three's lessons, Yassen's hand-picked victim for Alex's punishment after Santa Catarina, and took long seconds to find his voice.

He wanted to refuse. Opened his mouth and almost did, that second before the constant, lingering threat slithered to the front of his mind. From Yassen and Dr Three both because sometimes, there was really no difference. Not when it came to Alex's education.

A glance at Yassen confirmed it; cold, blue eyes utterly unyielding and utterly merciless. There would be no lenience there, either.

 _I will destroy you and rebuild you to my liking._

Maybe Alex could argue later. He doubted it would help but he had to try. Right there and then, he knew what the answer was supposed to be. Yassen allowed him to argue in private. In public, like this, and now of all times … Alex didn't want to consider the punishment if he pushed it.

He waited a heartbeat. Another. Tried to make sure his voice would be steady when he spoke. Then he finally took a slow breath.

"Yes, sir," he agreed again. Calm. Steady. Everything he didn't feel.

Dr Three probably knew. His kind smile was just a little too sharp.

"Excellent. Do finish your lunch, Alex. You're a growing boy."

Dr Three left. One of his silent assistants appeared by the door and followed him outside without a word being spoken.

The tension in the room seemed to ease slightly. Yassen was still there, but at least now there was only one of them. Conversation, low and polite, slowly picked up, at least away from the staff tables.

Alex poked the fish on his plate, perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned, perfectly arranged. Took a bite.

 _We expect you to handle the interrogation._

It tasted like ash.

* * *

A/N: Bit shorter than usual, but I didn't want to tag more scenes unto it, so yeah. Bit short this time around, I'm afraid.

Next: A part of Alex had always known it would come to this. He had just preferred to ignore it.


	85. Full Circle

Alex discovered what Yassen meant by 'do not let him out of sight' the moment lunch ended. Yassen gave him a pointed Look when he got up, capital L and all – he knew Alex wanted to argue; it wasn't like he needed to be a mind-reader to work that out – and Alex got up to follow.

So did Marcus. The fact that Yassen didn't react to that at all told Alex everything he needed to know.

Adams lingered outside the dining hall. Marcus exchanged a few, low words with him and Adams took over what was obviously guard duty for the day.

" _Seriously?_ " Alex demanded under his breath, rattled enough to let his mouth take charge before his brain and common sense could. "At _Malagosto?_ "

No, the school wasn't safe, _Dr Three_ was there, which on its own was bad enough, but it wasn't like it was that dangerous so long as he wasn't stupid about it, and certainly not now. Not with the amount of trouble the entire school would get into if anything happened to Alex.

Yassen's expression was all mild, polite blandness. "Is that a problem?"

That was a trap if Alex had ever heard one. Sure, he was rattled from Dr Three's little announcement but he wasn't that out of it.

Choose your battles, that was what his months with SCORPIA had taught him. Yassen clearly took his security seriously. Alex could tell right there and then that it would be hopeless to argue. At best, Yassen was just petty enough to make sure Alex wouldn't even be able to go to the _bathroom_ alone.

"… No, sir."

"Good."

Alex was still amazed sometimes at just how many layers of meaning Yassen could put into a single word. There was a definite, ominous ' _or else'_ implied in that answer.

He followed Yassen to the shooting range. Ross, just back from lunch as well, took one look, nodded in response to some unspoken order in Yassen's expression, and left the building to them. A glance at Adams saw him settle by the door, able to keep an eye on everything but far enough away that they had some amount of privacy.

"Pick one."

Yassen didn't need to elaborate on the order. Alex crossed the room to Ross' well-stocked armoury and hesitated for only a second before he brought back two familiar MP-443 Grachs and ammunition to go with them. How long had it been since Yassen last got the chance to shoot at a range? Alex didn't know but he doubted Yassen would turn down the chance. Alex didn't exactly have a favourite weapon himself but he was very familiar with Yassen's choice of sidearm.

A flicker of amused approval told Alex he had been right.

The range was familiar from endless hours of practice and little different from the last time he had been there, just a few weeks ago. The targets were the same, the smell of the room, the bright lights above. There was a series of ten used targets on one wall with names on top of them. They hadn't been there last time but they, too, were familiar; a way to encourage competition if Ross decided his students had been a little too slow in their progress.

The main difference this time was the one with _Starbright_ on it; not at the top of the class but not at the bottom, either. For someone who had started from scratch, she had worked fast to pick up shooting.

It clicked a moment later.

 _Jack._

This was another reason why they had chosen Malagosto to handle things. Politics, of course, but not just that. This was why Yassen had picked the shooting range for their talk, too. Not just because the compound was highly secure and Dr Three's territory but because Jack was there. A living, breathing reminder of just what was at risk if Alex didn't hunt down those responsible for the attack and made sure anyone else would think twice about trying in the future.

Alex went through the motions with the gun; watched Yassen do the same and felt a bit of calm settle. Not enough to soothe the roiling emotions but enough to make him a little more clear-headed.

Ear protection cut off the world outside. Alex's focus narrowed down to the gun and the target. Everything else faded away as he fired, one bullet after the other with motions that had become muscle memory long before he left Yassen's safe-house in Russia.

Finally he ran out of ammunition. Yassen had completed his rounds somewhat faster. Alex put down the gun. Removed his ear protection. The results were – not bad.

"Acceptable," Yassen murmured and the word sounded almost like approval.

Alex didn't know how long they had been there – ten, fifteen, thirty minutes? - but Adams was gone and the door was closed. Alex and Yassen were alone.

His mind felt clearer. Enough to think things through a little more and not just react on instinct. Dr Three's order still remained in his mind, dark and poisonous. He still wanted to argue but now he was a little more aware of just what he would be up against.

He could still back out. He could still just … agree and go along with it and -

\- And what? Dr Three's lessons had been bad enough. He had nearly thrown up when Crux had put those lessons into practical use in front of him, and the only way he had managed to get through it had been the promise that he wouldn't have to do it again. Could he actually do it himself; not just kill someone – a moment of pain and then _done_ – but slowly break them down over hours or days until they stopped being human and had become just a body that hadn't stopped breathing yet?

No. No, he couldn't, and he didn't want to be the sort of person who _could._

Alex Rider had always been an impulsive person. Plans had rarely succeeded in the first go, the Rider luck had always favoured chaos and destruction, and he didn't have the first idea of what sort of arguments he could possibly use, anyway. All he knew was that he absolutely refused. He didn't want to, Jack wouldn't want him to, either, and definitely not from using her as blackmail against him, and – no.

 _All right, then._

Alex looked up. He met Yassen's eyes without flinching and put every bit of bullheaded stubbornness he had into that look. "I won't do it."

He didn't need to get any more specific. They both knew what the topic had shifted to. Why Adams had been dismissed. Yassen watched him, eyes cold and unreadable and a world away from the faint, pleased approval at Alex's performance on the range. "It occurs to me we have had this discussion before."

Singapore, Alex remembered, when he had been threatened-blackmailed-coaxed into watching Crux's practical little lesson. Yes, they'd had that discussion before but this time Alex intended to win it.

"I was fifteen and terrified for my life."

"And now you are sixteen," Yassen agreed. "Barely a year older and, I think, no less terrified at times."

Alex raised his head defiantly. "You can't threaten me with SCORPIA any more. I don't have an executive board looking for any excuse to kill me because you very handily killed them first. Torture? You've threatened me with that before, too, and guess what, I've found the point where I _don't care._ Go ahead, I know you can break me, but I'm useless to both of you if you do."

No, he didn't want to end up in one of those cells, and the thought of drowning was pure, raw terror just waiting for the first bit of water in his lungs to send him into panic, but this time he knew the answer.

He had watched Crux's lesson in Singapore and never wanted to see it again – and Yassen had promised not to make him, for all that his promise had been worth. Alex understood and didn't really expect anything else. It had been a very different situation in Singapore and they both knew it.

He had refused to kill that prisoner as punishment after Santa Catarina when Yassen had given him a knife, but he suspected that Yassen had never actually intended to carry through with the threat of leaving him with Dr Three … and Alex had shot a man at point-blank range afterwards, which would have been good enough for Yassen.

This time … no.

 _No, and **fuck you**._

"Stand on your own and hold your ground," Alex bit out. "Isn't that what you two keep trying to teach me? Well, guess what, this is me holding my ground. _Fuck you, Yassen._ I'm not doing it."

It was, he realised distantly, the first time he had talked like that to Yassen, but he was in a world of trouble already and a little more didn't matter that much.

What that what teenage rebellion felt like? Alex felt a bit of hysterical laughter try to make its way out and suppressed it ruthlessly. It wasn't like he was in any place to rebel about dating or drinking or staying out late. Of course it would be something a bit more spectacular and -

\- No. He couldn't. He _wouldn't._

Yassen was silent for long seconds. Alex refused to back down, refused to look away, refused to show any kind of weakness. Maybe he was in a world of trouble, maybe he would end up in one of Dr Three's cells before nightfall, but if that was the case, he was going to make it worth it. On his own damn terms.

Cool, blue eyes watched him and seemed to look for something Alex couldn't identify. Then, finally, there was a faint glimmer of something that might have been pride.

"What was the first lesson?"

"Delegate." Alex didn't even need to think about that one.

Yassen nodded. "You were ordered to handle the interrogation. We did not specify the details. It seems to me that you have three options, then. You carry out the interrogation yourself, you watch it done, or you give the order and trust that whoever carries it out will give you accurate intel in return."

Alex stilled. Adrenaline, joined by fight or flight instincts, stumbled in the face of what sounded like an opening round of negotiations rather than threats.

Had they _wanted_ him to argue? Was that the point? Was it another test? How many people would argue to Yassen's face – or to Dr Three's, if it came to that?

He did not miss the fact that Yassen didn't mention not being involved at all as an option. He was pretty sure he understood, too. Yassen was training a successor. Alex would need to get information from uncooperative sources sooner or later. If he couldn't handle that, he had no place as the future head of SCORPIA.

Dr Three would have gone with the first option and handled it himself. Yassen probably would have, too. Alex couldn't. And the other two options … watching wasn't much of an option at all. He didn't want to, he still remembered nausea and the taste of bile in Singapore, and the choice in the end was an easy one.

"… I'll give the order."

He had the feeling it would be horribly easy, too. Much easier than it should be. Just – a few words and it would be handled and he wouldn't have to think about the gruesome details. Out of sight, right?

Sometimes Alex hated himself for how _easily_ Yassen had turned him into – into this. Sometimes he wondered what Ian would have thought, but since this was partially Ian's fault in the first place, Ian could kindly go fuck himself, too.

Yassen nodded and did not look surprised. "As expected. Tell me, then, the difference between giving that order and carrying it out on your own. Your victim will suffer no less for it. He will be no less dead once you have ripped everything valuable from his mind and his body can survive that treatment no longer."

Yassen also had a horrible ability to cut right through Alex's coping mechanisms.

"… A lot of hypocrisy and denial on my part?"

Yassen's lips twitched slightly. "Was that an answer or a question?"

Alex just shrugged. Looked away, back at the paper targets on the table in front of him. Decent accuracy but he still needed to work on speed. That had always been his biggest issue. Most others would have been satisfied but Alex knew he could do better. Knew Yassen expected him to do better, too.

"Alex." The name was little more than a murmur in the silence. Yassen waited until Alex looked back before he continued. "You understand what this is."

"A test."

Silence. Yassen didn't respond and finally Alex continued quietly.

"… And punishment. For Russia."

He had done the quick, mental calculation once his mind had settled down a little. The flight alone from Johannesburg was eight hours, not counting the transportation to Malagosto. If the team with the captive was due in the afternoon, they had left Johannesburg that morning. It had deliberately been left out of the update he had been given. Yassen and Dr Three had wanted to catch him completely unprepared. Knew there and then, even if he didn't want to admit it, that just giving the order to get the intel by whatever means necessary was not actually an option.

The paper targets from the regular class were still there out of the corner of his eye and his attention drifted back to them for a second, unbidden.

 _Starbright._

He needed the intel to make sure an assassination attempt like that wouldn't happen again. To make sure that the example they made of whoever had been responsible was gruesome enough to remove any incentive to target him again – him, or Yassen, or Sagitta -

\- Or Jack.

He needed the intel and if he wasn't there for the interrogation, the likelihood that Dr Three would find a way to twist that information as a _lesson_ was … not something Alex wanted to gamble with. The man would do it, too, and somehow make Jack a target in the process, because she was a weakness and unlike Sagitta and Yassen, her main value to Dr Three was as a way to control Alex. The man would make a lesson out of her if that was what it took to make Alex learn. Kill her and make it Alex's fault. A lesson and punishment both.

Alex closed his eyes briefly. Remembered Singapore and the _smell;_ chemicals and disinfectant and blood and everything else, and he wanted to throw up again. Watch it done or do it himself. It wasn't really a choice at all.

But then, it was supposed to be a punishment and Dr Three knew exactly how to make it hurt the most. Maybe he should be grateful there was a possible sort-of way out at all.

"… I'll watch," he said softly. "I can't -"

He stopped but didn't need to finish the sentence.

"And perhaps that is a lesson as well," Yassen agreed quietly. "I did not choose you for your obedience, Alex. You have always been willing to argue with those far more dangerous than yourself. That defiance is a risk but I think it will serve you well more often than not. SCORPIA has no use for mindless obedience in its leadership. You will need to be ruthless. You will need to make those examples of your enemies. But you are also Alex Rider and sixteen years old, and there are things you are not yet ready for. Learn to adapt. You will need that information but it was never a requirement that it was done by your own hand. SCORPIA has interrogation specialists for a reason. Her operatives are trained in it but you will not be able to do everything on your own. Delegate those tasks where it is an actual option."

 _Things you are not yet ready for._

Two years ago, Alex would have sworn he would never kill someone, his threat to Yassen in London notwithstanding. A year ago, he would have sworn he would never watch another torture session again. He had killed repeatedly, and he was about to see another victim picked apart in the name of _information retrieval_. Alex would swear he would never torture someone himself. How long would that promise last?

For Jack's safety. For Yassen, for Sagitta, for the future plots he could stop and the innocents that wouldn't be hurt and -

\- and.

Sometime during the course of it, Alex's attention had drifted to the paper targets again. Yassen reached out and touched his chin lightly to turn his head back towards him.

"The good doctor is fond of you. He is far more lenient with you than most others but this does not change the core of his personality. He is a sadist; known to carry out experiments not merely under the guise of SCORPIA business and research but sometimes out of annoyance or simple boredom. He has calmed in old age, certainly, but do not expect kindness from him. You will be tested and he will delight in your struggles. All the more so if he can make you torture yourself. To see you carry out the interrogation by your own hand and have you find out afterwards that merely watching and having someone more skilled wield the tools would have been acceptable, too."

Ulterior motive upon ulterior motive. Alex wasn't sure why he was even remotely surprised. Dr Three was dangerously intelligent and has survived two decades of SCORPIA's most lethal politics. He could play mind-games like few others.

And Yassen … would he have helped if Alex hadn't argued? Or would he just have let Alex stumble along and watched him struggle to carry out that order and never said a word? The thoughts came entirely unwanted and settled uncomfortable in Alex's mind.

Alex had the horrible suspicion the answer was no. If Yassen had wanted mindless obedience, there were dozens of other possible candidates out there. Alex's tendency to argue and question and do his own thing was as valuable to Yassen as it was probably frustrating, too.

Alex suspected the answer was no but he didn't ask.

"I thought you were done helping me," he said instead. "That I'm supposed to stand on my own and learn without having you hold my hand."

"You weren't thinking clearly. You were rattled from the attack and needed the proper incentive to focus again. The rest was entirely your own doing." Yassen lowered his hand. "You will need to choose someone to carry out the interrogation for you."

Alex didn't say Dr Three. He was absolute sure the doctor would refuse, if only to force Alex to deal with it himself. Even if it hadn't been meant as a punishment, the man would still have delighted in that.

"… Crux," he said. "If the doctor will let her."

Which … maybe he would, maybe he wouldn't. Yassen had offered a loophole of sorts in the order but that didn't mean the doctor would go along with it. Crux was his apprentice. She did nothing without his permission. Dr Three could decide to indulge Alex's excuse of _delegate_ or he could insist that Alex did it himself, and in that case it really wouldn't matter who Alex suggested, anyway. Crux was the interrogation instructor, though. That sort of thing was within her purview now, wasn't it?

Yassen nodded. He didn't seem like he disapproved of the choice, at least. "You will need to convince the good doctor, of course."

 _Of course._

Yassen made it sound so easy. He had offered a possible way out. It was up to Alex now to claim it.

Now, the likelihood that Dr Three would go along with that loophole if this was meant as a punishment … that was something Alex wasn't going to consider for too long.

* * *

Alex found himself in Dr Three's office half an hour later. Just enough time to take some deep breaths, try to calm down, and get his arguments in order. And maybe a little bit of procrastination. Just a few minutes of pretending that if he didn't do anything, if he just stayed there at the range, time would just … pause and he wouldn't have to make a decision. Wouldn't have to deal with the future.

It didn't work, of course. That didn't stop Alex from trying. Nor did it stop Yassen's pointed look to get him going.

Dr Three didn't seem surprised. He never did, to be fair, but Alex kind of suspected the man had known he would show up.

"Alex. Do come in."

Alex left Adams outside. One of Dr Three's silent assistants was there with a slim folder that the doctor was looking through. The man – Alex recognised him as Matteo – closed the folder as Alex approached but didn't leave; merely took a few steps back, a polite distance away.

"I would like your permission to borrow Crux to carry out the interrogation, sir." Alex got straight to the point. Dr Three was not a man who appreciated anyone wasting his time.

The doctor watched him for long seconds. Alex could read nothing in his expression but mild curiosity of the sort that he had learned could mean anything from genuine approval to someone being two words from being sent to one of the cells.

The man hummed slightly. Let the silence continue to stretch on. Alex didn't move and fought down every nervous urge to start talking again and fill the silence with babbled explanations.

"The order was for you to handle the interrogation," Dr Three finally said.

"You didn't specify that I had to carry it out myself, sir."

And that came out a lot sassier than Alex had intended. He froze for a second – if the doctor took that badly, he was absolutely _screwed_ – and then slowly let himself breathe again when a slight flicker of what Alex really hoped was indulgent amusement crossed the man's face.

"It is so easy to forget your age sometimes. What we could have created," Dr Three said, almost fondly, "had we only found you sooner."

One more entry on Alex's long list of nightmares right there. In retrospect, most of Ian's training had been survival stuff – things like fitness, self-defence, situational awareness, and languages. Useful for a spy, sure, but also very useful if anyone had ever targeted Alex. If Alex had ended up with SCORPIA not at fourteen with a solid sense of right and wrong but at seven, when Ian had started to leave on longer missions, or at just a few months old, right after his parents had been murdered …

He doubted he would have been Alex at all. SCORPIA would have raised a child assassin and Alex would have known nothing else. It would have been _normal._ Alex wouldn't even be surprised if it had been Dr Three to raise him in a world like that. Kurst would have killed him. Rothman was … well, Alex supposed it would have been the flip of a coin if she would have decided to raise him perfectly loyal and obedient as revenge against John Rider or if she would have had him killed to finish the job Ash had failed at. Dr Three, though … he would have delighted in a subject that young. Someone to shape and twist entirely to his liking. It certainly wouldn't have been Yassen to do it; too young and probably too close to Hunter for anyone's comfort.

Alex felt vaguely sick at the thought. At the person he could have been, in some horrible other world.

"I imagine Yassen made you aware of the lack of specifics in the order," Dr Three continued and carried on without waiting for a response. "You were quite unhappy with the idea of it and he has always been softer with you than most suspect. Very well, then. Convince me, Alex."

The order was so sudden that Alex had to take a moment to get his thoughts together again. Tried to remember the arguments he'd had ready; the ones that weren't just _I don't want to._

"Except for you, sir, Crux is the most skilled interrogator at the school. She even teaches the class. I'm supposed to delegate, that was the first lesson I had to learn. I can't do everything myself, and Crux is much better qualified for this than I am."

"You are trained for interrogation to the same standards as any adult operative," Dr Three pointed. "You passed the class with quite acceptable marks; you have simply not needed to make use of it yet. Well overdue, I think."

Alex was, in fact, quite happy he hadn't needed to use that class yet and was in absolutely no hurry to change it, but Dr Three undoubtedly knew that.

"I don't have the practical experience and Crux knows what mistakes to avoid. The sniper is our only solid lead. If something goes wrong and he dies, we lose that intel, too."

Dr Three nodded. Alex realised his mistake about five seconds too late.

"You do not yet have the practical experience," the doctor agreed. "All the more reason to change that. You were the one they dared to target. It is only appropriate that you have the privilege of crushing such arrogance."

Alex recognised the flow of the conversation from long weeks and months alone with the man and understood in that instant that Dr Three planned to argue with every single point he made, and Alex had very few arguments as it was.

The backup plan, then. The one he was sure Yassen wouldn't approve of and so hadn't bothered to mention … though knowing Yassen, he probably suspected it, anyway.

Alex met Dr Three's gaze without flinching and pulled up every last bit of stubbornness he possessed. It had worked with Yassen and he had nothing to lose now, either. "… I don't want to."

A slight pause was the doctor's only visible reaction. "I beg your pardon?"

Alex took a deep breath. "I don't want to, _sir._ I know I'll need to get used to the idea of torture and yes, I'll stay and watch and make sure I get the intel straight from the source, but I don't want to and I won't have to. SCORPIA has interrogation specialists for a reason. I know I'll have to be willing to use torture. It's not a requirement that I have to do it myself."

Which was all it came down to in the end. Alex could haul out any number of arguments but that one was the one that mattered. The one that no amount of arguing could make him change his mind about.

Sharp eyes watched him; a sudden interest in the doctor's expression that Alex didn't like in the least.

"Indeed. You would give an order you are not willing to carry out yourself?" Dr Three asked mildly.

What Alex had told himself he would never do, if only in the privacy of his own mind. That he would never give his people an order he wouldn't have accepted himself, that he would never, ever forget that they were living, breathing human beings he was responsible for.

It shouldn't have been a surprise that Dr Three somehow knew.

"That never stopped the old board." And Crux would be delighted. The fact that she got paid to play with that poor sniper would just be a bonus.

That it would still be an order he would never accept himself was … not something he wanted to linger on.

"I like to think," Dr Three said, "that we can hold ourselves to higher standards than those. I was quite fond of several of my colleagues, but politics and individual interests became the bane of what was once a strong vision. However strong the organisation appeared from the outside, I doubt we were more than a year or two from a power struggle that could have destroyed all of SCORPIA."

Alex wasn't sure what to say to that so he settled for silence. _Higher_ _standards_ and _Dr Three_ didn't really belong in the same sentence together but he was not about to point that out.

The doctor fell silent. Seemed to consider the situation. He also didn't seem to be in any hurry at all. Alex tried to keep from fidgeting but didn't entirely manage.

Finally he seemed to reach a decision. The glimmer of humanity in his eyes bled away. "Denied. You have your orders. We expect you to handle the interrogation. Do try to prove you remember your training. Dismissed."

Alex froze. Matteo returned the slim folder to the doctor's desk. Dr Three opened it, Alex clearly dismissed from his attention.

 _No._

"No," Alex repeated out loud. Arguing with Dr Three was a bad idea but his mouth acted before his brain could kick back in and he wasn't sure he would have stopped it, anyway. "I won't."

"This is not a democracy, Alexander." Dr Three glanced at him. "Do not mistake my indulgence for weakness. You would not be the first of our operatives to require re-education. Dismissed."

The one and only warning, knowing the man. Defiance kicked in, defiance and adrenaline and every ounce of common sense that told him to quit while he was ahead and _get out of there_ and Alex ignored it with practised, stubborn ease.

" _No._ I won't. I refuse."

 _And you can't make me,_ he didn't add because that would be a lie, but he would damn well fight it every step of the way. Maybe it was a stupid, arbitrary line to draw considering everything else he had done but he didn't care. It mattered to _him,_ and the rest of SCORPIA could go screw itself.

This time Dr Three paused and looked up to actually focus on Alex. A faint flicker of something that might have been annoyance crossed his features.

" _Orion._ You have your orders."

Alex hadn't expected it but that didn't matter. His instant, immediate reaction was familiar to him by now; the surge of terror and overwhelming panic and the moment when he _couldn't breathe,_ and he pushed through it like he had managed before. Each time a little easier, each moment of resistance a little stronger than the last.

" _No!_ "

For a moment neither of them moved, Dr Three utterly unreadable and Alex reduced to the most basic instincts of fear and stubbornness and sheer, spiteful defiance.

Dr Three was fond of him but that meant very little when it came down to it and if the man took a particularly dim view of Alex's sudden teenage rebellion, if he decided to actually take _offense -_

\- People had died for much less than that and even Yassen might not be able to protect him from those consequences.

"At times like this," Dr Three finally said, "I see why Yassen spared you. You are stubborn, you act before you think, you carry the remnants of your irrational teenage behaviour, and you cling to arbitrary morals and convictions trained into you by Ian Rider. It is a marvel you have lived to see sixteen, but perhaps it is those same qualities that will allow you to take over one day, if given the time to remove the more unfortunate of those convictions."

A heartbeat. Another. Alex didn't dare speak. Even his breathing sounded horribly loud to his ears.

"Granted. Young Crux is under your command for the rest of the day. Should she fail to gain the necessary intel within this time, the task falls to you. Dismissed."

Alex swallowed. Felt the weight of everything suddenly settle on his shoulders, how close he had come to disaster, and took a moment to find his voice.

"… Yes, sir."

It was almost steady. Alex considered that a victory in itself.

* * *

Next: There are some classes Alex really doesn't want to repeat, especially not if they come with a personal tutor.


	86. The Dutiful Student

A/N: I don't think I've mentioned it in a while but thank you so much for reading, and for your reviews. They're always appreciated (and as is any remaining patience with this monster!). For those keeping track at home, I'm currently trying to wrap this up for the third time. Alex decided to dodge both the original ending and the re-worked version quite a few chapters ago, so now I'm trying again.

* * *

A team of SCORPIA's guards arrived with the sniper that afternoon. Alex met them by the entrance to Dr Three's so-called _guest accommodations._ The fact that the man had been hauled through the entire school in full view of students, staff, and any enemy surveillance didn't matter at all to them. Alex supposed it wouldn't. The man was no one as far as most people involved were concerned. A sniper, maybe freelance or maybe a permanent part of whatever organisation that had challenged SCORPIA, but not a great one and that made him little more than cannon fodder in SCORPIA's point of view. Surveillance wouldn't matter, then, and neither would the students. In the unlikely event that anyone recognised him, it wouldn't make a difference, and Dr Three enjoyed the silent reminder of what happened to SCORPIA's enemies.

Alex was alone. Well, almost. Crux, caught up in the daily duties of a teacher, would join him once everything had been set up. Shale was there with him, apparently the winner of the evening security shift, but neither of them had spoken a word so far. Alex didn't feel like being social and Shale wasn't the talkative sort.

It did not make the wait any easier, just the two of them and the unnerving silence among the cells in Dr Three's building. How many were occupied? Alex didn't know. There was one student in RTI but beyond that he had no idea. He knew which cell had been reserved for the sniper. As for the rest, he wasn't about to ask any questions he didn't want to know the answer to. He felt sick enough as it was. Shale, with years more of experience, didn't seem bothered.

They had the rest of the evening to get answers. It had taken Crux only a fraction of that time to get what she wanted from the man in Singapore. The sniper was probably trained but Alex desperately hoped he had absolutely no loyalty left. Just – the answers they wanted and it would be done, and Alex wouldn't have to spend hours watching Crux work. Or worse, if she failed, handle the rest himself.

Dr Three would not be that lenient again. That gamble would only work once.

The man in charge of the guards was familiar from Santa Catarina. Jemaine had been a semi-permanent part of Johann Graff's security for those weeks; a calm, stable, level-headed person with the patience to deal with an unhappy eleven-year-old.

That just made Alex all the more surprised to see the state of the sniper up close.

The man looked like he had been used as a punching bag. He had a black eye, a vicious bruise going all the way down his cheek below it, and a split, swollen lip. They weren't the tell-tale signs of Dr Three's lessons but someone had clearly not been happy.

Alex couldn't stop himself. "What happened?"

Jemaine shrugged. "Ms Gale's report says that he used 'language unbecoming of a gentleman in the presence of a lady' so she rectified that."

Right. Of course she did. Alex really doubted that Gale would be described as a 'lady' by _anyone_ who knew just what she was – or that the sniper could be described as a 'gentleman' by any means – but he kept his mouth shut about that.

"She says that he'll have a mild concussion at the most, she left all of his teeth in place, there are no further injuries of note, and it's all cosmetic damage."

The worst part was that Jemaine managed to make that sound so genuinely _helpful._ Alex would have to take their word for it, too. It didn't look serious to him, either, but he didn't have that much medical training. Not the practical stuff, anyway. Mostly just training in how to take people apart.

The sniper moved sluggishly and unsteady, probably from drugs of some sort. His mouth had torn skin and glue residue around it and had probably been duct-taped shut at some point. His good eye, the one that hadn't been almost swollen shut, seemed to have a hard time focusing. It was a small miracle the man could stand, much less walk. Alex suspected he had been more or less dragged across the compound rather than actually walked. Another way to disorient and unsettle him.

Jemaine seemed to notice where his attention had drifted to. "The drug should last for about another half an hour. We wanted to make sure he didn't try to damage himself. Ms Gale looked him over and didn't find anything dangerous but he's our only lead."

The only lead, and Alex wasn't the only one who wanted to get to the bottom of things and make sure it wouldn't happen again. Jemaine and the rest of the guards took the whole thing somewhat personally, too. Someone had leaked that intel. Until they found out who had done it, it could technically have been anyone, Jemaine and his people included. Under suspicion by default. That was not a pleasant place to be. Even Shale and Ivey, who had actually been in that Land Cruiser with Alex, were not exempt.

 _Right, then._

Alex took a steadying breath and led them down the hallway. The cell was no different from any other, no different from the one Alex had spent two weeks in himself during RTI, and being inside one of them still brought a sinking feeling of dread. Two weeks in RTI. Yassen's lesson after Santa Catarina. Now this.

Dr Three's cells featured prominently in some of Alex's nightmares these days.

Jemaine's men moved fast. The sniper was cuffed to the metal chair within twenty seconds, the restraints double-checked within thirty, and the man's health briefly looked over by the ninety second mark.

The sniper was still out of it but some primal part of the man's brain had the coherency to realise what was going on. He pulled on the cuffs, too weak to do any real damage to himself, and struggled to focus.

" - et …" He trailed off, the single half-word he managed almost too slurred to make out.

Was that how Alex himself had looked during RTI? He had no idea and he pushed the thought aside before it could fester.

Jemaine glanced at Alex.

"You want us to shut him up? We still have the duct tape."

On top of already torn skin and the split lip, it would be agony to remove again. Crux would be delighted. Alex suppressed a shudder. "No. It's – Crux will be here soon."

Too soon in Alex's opinion, but there wasn't much he could do about it, and she was the least bad choice he had. At least he knew how she worked and had seen it before. She had undoubtedly picked up some new tricks during her months as Dr Three's apprentice but better the devil he knew. Or something.

He knew she would want the man silenced. She had told him as much in Singapore. Keep him silent and not give him the chance to speak until she had already make it abundantly clear just how much pain she could leave him in if he refused to talk or decided to lie. She would want that duct tape back in place, but Alex refused to give that order, however little it mattered. She could do that herself.

Alex was glad he had skipped dinner. He already wanted to throw up.

Malagosto-trained operatives rarely got caught alive. Months of classes with Dr Three had taught all of them that death was a far kinder alternative to that sort of thing. If that sniper had been taught the same, Alex wouldn't have been about to watch his second practical lesson in torture – because Crux, ever the teacher, would make a learning opportunity out of it. Then again, if he had, they wouldn't have had much in the way of leads at all and Alex would be no closer to discovering just why he had been targeted. They needed to strike fast to avoid a second attempt. To do that, they needed intel.

Jemaine nodded. Two of his men settled by the door as added insurance in case the sniper tried anything. "Our people in Johannesburg are still looking for more leads but right now he's our best bet. The explosives will take a while for the cops to track down and the van they used had been stolen the day before and its plates switched. Those were stolen, too."

Not a surprise but still annoying. It did not make it any easier to hunt down their attacker.

Footsteps in the hallway drew Alex's attention and he glanced at the door just in time to see Crux step inside. She nodded at Alex, a small, fond smile on her lips, and then paused, sharp eyes zeroing in on their prisoner.

"Quite the spectacle," she remarked, mainly to Jemaine.

The man shrugged. "The drug should wear off in another twenty or thirty minutes, ma'am. We figured it would be a good lesson for everyone if we dragged him through the compound. Just in case anyone gets any ideas."

Crux made a sound of agreement. Crossed the room and gripped the sniper's chin tightly to tilt his head up, probably to get a better look at his injuries.

The sniper managed to focus enough to glare.

"… _Fuck_ you," he slurred.

Crux didn't even blink. Just let go of his chin and backhanded him viciously. His head snapped to the side and sent blood flying from his lip. The sound was overwhelming in the small room, and only the fact that Alex had seen Crux move kept him from flinching. The man groaned but didn't speak. Alex suspected the strike had been enough to knock him out of it again.

"Closer to twenty minutes, I think," Crux noted, eyes never leaving the sniper. "I'm certain we'll find a way to pass the time until then."

There was a long, thin wound gouged out of the sniper's cheek, all the way across where Crux's hand had struck. Only then did Alex spot the ring on her finger. It was probably a decoy wedding ring as part of her usual disguise but there was no way she hadn't known the sort of damage the single, sharp-looking stone in it would do.

She snapped her fingers in Jemaine's direction. He got the hint and handed over the roll of duct tape. Crux seemed to take a little too much delight in making sure the piece she used to cover the sniper's mouth with was perfectly positioned on top of his injuries.

"Do we have any intel on him?"

"No, ma'am, not that we've been able to find so far," Jemaine replied. "We'll keep looking but honestly, I don't think we'll find anything. Nothing useful, anyway."

Cold, calculating eyes took in the sniper's appearance. Alex didn't doubt Crux had plenty of experience with that sort of initial evaluation. Additional intel would have been helpful but was definitely not a requirement for someone with that many years of practical experience.

The evaluation did not end up in the sniper's favour. Crux's expression shifted from cool to annoyed and vaguely disdainful.

"Agreed. Lack of intel like that is the sign of someone either good enough to leave no evidence or new enough in the business that they haven't been caught yet. I think we can safely rule out the former option." Sharp eyes turned to Alex. Turned slightly warmer and more patient, the image of the teacher rather than the interrogator. "Alex?"

It took him a second to realise she wanted his opinion. She was sure of her conclusion, and she knew he knew it, but she had delighted in being the teacher in Singapore, too.

"The snipers had decent aim but not much more than that," Alex said. "If he had been that good, his aim would have been a lot better, too. Definitely new in the business."

New enough not to know to turn down a contract like that. New enough not to be familiar with SCORPIA. Probably even new enough not to comprehend just how much trouble he was really in. Who would even have warned him? If he had stumbled into the job as a freelancer, he wouldn't have had anyone to back him up. Alex had avoided a lot of potentially lethal mistakes because Yassen had taken him under his wing. Most people in their line of work had to figure it out on their own.

Alex's nausea, forgotten for a brief minute, was back with a vengeance.

Crux smiled. She looked pleased. "Now, since we have another twenty minutes or so still, we may as well get some use out of that. Tell me the parts of the human body most sensitive to pain. In order of sensitivity, please."

Alex closed his eyes briefly. Swallowed against the nausea. He remembered those lessons. Remembered Dr Three's many and horrifically detailed diagrams, born from what he didn't doubt was years of experiments. Remembered just as vividly the many nightmares that had followed. "What kind of pain?"

Crux's attention turned back to the sniper. She seemed to consider him for a moment.

"Burns," she decided. "We will move on from there."

Alex nodded. Remembered the lessons and the photos and recordings that went with them in graphic, unwanted detail. Understood what she was doing, the mix of psychological torture and a check that Alex remembered his training, but that didn't make it any easier.

He took a moment to steady himself. Then he opened his mouth, slipped into the person he had been so many months ago at Malagosto, and started on the list.

* * *

Alex's suspicion that the man was freelance turned out to be accurate, and so did their guess that he was new in that line of work. He was stubborn, a lot more so than Crux's victim in Singapore, but it didn't matter in the end.

Crux got her information. Name, contacts, details of the job, anyone else he had worked with, and – finally – a name.

 _Robert Isaac Warren._

For a long moment, Alex was back in Australia, back on Yu's estate as part security, part intimidation, part personal assistant as the man settled the details regarding some new acquisitions.

Warren had been one of those. Yu had threatened to send the man's son to Malagosto and used Alex as proof that SCORPIA had no qualms about putting a teenager through that sort of training.

Within a day, Warren had gone from being the undisputed ruler of a small but profitable part of the Australian underworld to one of Yu's brutally controlled subordinates. How he had fared after Yu's death, Alex had no idea, and why he apparently wanted Alex dead was … not something Alex was sure he understood. The sniper hadn't known. Hadn't cared and hadn't asked, because that sort of thing was none of his business. Alex couldn't help but wonder. Yu had been the threat. Alex had just been security. Was it revenge? Yu was dead, but Alex … hadn't had much to do with it at all. He had just been there and made the appropriate sounds at the right time.

Alex's list of questions had long since been exhausted. Jemaine had a few more but Alex forced himself to ignore it as Crux continued the interrogation. He had heard enough. Would hear plenty more in his nightmares, too. At least she didn't need to use any more torture for those questions.

Alex hadn't thrown up. He was kind of proud of that. He suspected he looked paler than he should and he doubted he had kept his expression under control but … that was about the best he could hope for. One breath after the other, slow and steady until he could focus on the rhythm of his lungs and heartbeat and forget the world around him just a little.

He really wanted to throw up. Throw up, curl up in his bed, and sleep for a week. He knew perfectly well he would be lucky to get to sleep much past dawn.

Shale hadn't spoken a word, though based on the few glances Alex had risked, he didn't seem at all bothered by it. Unlike Yassen, lethal and intimidating, Shale's presence was almost reassuring. Yassen came with the threat of consequences if Alex didn't do well enough. Shale didn't. He was just security. He wasn't involved, wasn't going to threaten Alex into anything, and that made a world of difference.

Alex wasn't alone. Maybe Shale couldn't actually do anything but at least Alex wasn't alone.

Only now that it was almost over did Shale move and shifted slightly to close the distance between them.

"Remember," he said, so low the words only just reached Alex, "that this is not a random person they plucked from the streets to use for a lesson. This is not an undercover agent sent to stop a criminal organisation. This is a sniper, someone who did his best to try to kill us, who knew the price of failure and took the job anyway and didn't have the skills to back it up in the end."

 _\- Bullets against thick glass, one after the other, slowly wearing down the armoured layers -_

Alex breathed slowly and tried to keep the nausea under control. "That's supposed to make it easier?"

"It's supposed to make a difference," Shale murmured. "If it helps, take it, but don't forget that he tried to kill us first."

In any other case, it probably would have helped, and Alex didn't doubt he would have felt much worse if the sniper had been an intelligence agent or some random poor bastard picked just for that purpose instead. Now, though … the only difference between that sniper and Alex was the fact that Alex was better trained and had walked away from his assignments. That was all. Alex's targets were dead and that sniper's wasn't.

It could have been him instead in that sniper's place, an unwilling guest of MI6 or the CIA or Glaive or whoever else, but otherwise absolutely no different. Just better trained. Just luckier.

"Alex."

Crux's voice cut through his thoughts. He looked up to find the last of the questions had been handled and that she had begun to pack the tools away again, careful and meticulous.

The sniper was still breathing. Barely.

Alex understood that unspoken meaning just fine. He remembered Singapore. Remembered it entirely too well. Dr Three had allowed him to get Crux's help for the evening. That didn't mean he would get away with clean hands. For a moment he was tempted to pass that task on to Shale, who had snapped a man's neck and never even blinked, and he hated himself for it. Shale was a sniper. He had killed before and would kill again. That was what SCORPIA paid him for. It still gave Alex no right to order him to handle something that was Alex's punishment for Russia in the first place.

Alex didn't allow himself to think. Just pulled his gun and fired in a single, smooth motion, just like Yassen had so many months ago.

The sniper did not breathe again.

Alex lowered the gun. Returned it to its holster and forced himself to ignore the slight tremor in his hand.

Shale didn't speak. Neither did Alex. The room was silent, the sound of Crux's careful clean-up abnormally loud in the empty cell. Jemaine had vanished, presumably with the answers he wanted.

Long, silent minutes later, Crux was done. Alex and Shale followed her out of the cell. The body would be handled. Alex had never asked about the details.

"You should have the report within a few hours," Crux said, all business.

"Thank you," Alex replied and meant it. He wasn't sure he would be able to remember even half of what he had heard and the last thing he wanted was to watch through the recordings repeatedly to catch every single word of the interrogation.

"Robert Warren," she mused. "Unusual. An awfully small fish for such large ambitions."

"Winston Yu threatened to send Warren's son to Malagosto if he didn't cooperate and used me as proof that they would do it," Alex said quietly. "I was there as Yu's security for two weeks. I guess he decided I was the main threat now that Yu is dead."

Crux made a thoughtful little noise that didn't sound entirely convinced. Alex couldn't blame her.

"You are aware," she pointed out, "that he could be nothing more than a scapegoat. It is a remarkable risk to run for someone with so much to lose and so little to gain from your death."

 _A remarkably stupid risk_ went unsaid. She was right, though, and Alex knew it. Not just _could_ be a scapegoat but very likely was. Revenge could have been a motive – revenge and reason didn't always go together – but while Alex had been present for Yu's threats to Warren, he had never been part of it. Yu's threat had been to send Isaac Warren off to Malagosto but he had never once brought Alex into it as anything but proof that SCORPIA would do it.

Maybe Warren had become convinced Alex posed a legitimate threat. Maybe Yu had made further threats after Alex had left, though with how thoroughly Yu had taken over Warren's operation, he doubted it.

Revenge and reason didn't always go hand in hand. Still, something didn't add up. The sniper had told the truth, Alex didn't doubt it, but he also knew he didn't have the full picture. The sniper had known the bare minimum required to do the job but Alex would need so much more to figure out what was actually going on.

Warren had the information about Johannesburg from somewhere and he didn't strike Alex as someone to have a vast enough network for that. He hadn't back in August with Yu, anyway, at least not from the impression Alex got. Warren had ruled his section of the Australian underworld with an iron fist but he had never reached further than that. He had never shown that sort of ambition according to the file Alex still faintly remembered.

Someone had fed him the intel, then, or he had found out on accident, and Alex doubted it was the latter. There was really no such thing as coincidences. Someone had fed him the intel. Warren. Not Glaive or an intelligence agency or one of the several organisations that had been born from the ashes of Yu's empire, any one of which would have paid extremely well for intel of the exact location of one of SCORPIA's highest-ranking operatives. Warren.

Even if Glaive would be too cautious to take the risk, the snakehead remnants had much less to lose. Had Warren been chosen because he was more established? Had better resources? Because others had been approached but refused to act on the intel?

Alex didn't know and that just left him all the more in the dark about a motive. He had been the target. Why, he still didn't know.

Something to ask Warren, he supposed. He knew Yassen and Dr Three would put him in charge of that mission. He had been the target, the task of getting even fell to him. Any other operative Alex had known would have considered that an unusually generous bonus. To Alex it felt more like a punishment.

Outside, evening had fallen. The air had cooled. The many scents and the slight breeze were a welcome relief from the cold, sterile air in the cells.

Alex took a deep breath. Murmured a greeting to Crux as she left, a fond little smile aimed at him before she vanished towards the staff quarters.

For a moment it was just the two of them, Alex and Shale. He wondered if Shale enjoyed the fresh air as much as he himself did. Neither of them were in any hurry to go anywhere, at least.

Shale glanced at Crux's retreating figure.

"Former instructor?" He kept his voice quiet. The words still felt almost like sacrilege in the silence.

Alex shook his head. "No. Not for this sort of thing, anyway. I went through the school while Dr Three still taught that class. She's his apprentice. We've worked together before. She's the one who taught me to pass for female."

An interrogation specialist with excellent disguise skills. It wasn't until then that it really clicked for Alex just how valuable someone like Crux would be to SCORPIA. With a good enough disguise and cover, she could travel anywhere. A white woman around forty who could switch effortlessly between perfectly inoffensive Mid-Atlantic American English and Australian English, she could travel anywhere in the Western world and no one would even look twice. If a prisoner could not be transported to Dr Three, she could travel to most places in his stead, just like Dwale could. The perfect job for someone like her.

Alex took another deep breath. The nausea slowly eased. Slowly.

"All right?" Shale murmured.

 _Of course._ Alex was about to haul out the usual, bland lie he preferred. Decided for blunt honesty at the last moment.

"… I kinda want to throw up."

A heartbeat. Another.

"I wouldn't blame you," Shale admitted.

Nothing else needed to be said. Above, the moon slowly rose. Alex stayed there for a long time and simply enjoyed the sweet, cool, fresh air.

Food and sleep and his endless to-do lists could wait. For now, Alex just wanted to breathe.

* * *

Next: If intelligence agencies can outsource their problems to SCORPIA, Alex wonders if he can outsource his problems as well.


	87. Things Not Spoken

Alex's estimate of getting to sleep barely past dawn turned out to be accurate. Eight o'clock the next morning found him in Yassen's temporary penthouse apartment in Abu Dhabi. There were guards outside and much heavier security than the first time Alex had been there but it was still familiar. Still soothing.

They were alone, even Ivey and Mace left outside. Alex wondered if he would ever get used to security like that. He felt bad that they had to tag along for everything he did, like a team of particularly well-trained guard dogs.

Sit. Stay. Follow. Alex felt like a grade-A jerk, leaving them in the hallway to just wait while he spent however long with Yassen. At least there was air conditioning.

It made Alex feel torn between just _leaving_ because of that horrible, overwhelming sense of claustrophobia, and doing his level best to make the job as easy for them as he could. Stay somewhere nice and safe and not make them feel like they were the victims of his whims.

Maybe Yassen had planned it like that, the slight guilt to make him behave. Alex wouldn't be surprised.

Just to make Alex feel extra bad about it, there was a generous breakfast waiting in the living room. Mostly healthy – _thank you, Yassen_ – but Alex spotted a chocolate croissant and a strawberry pastry of some sort in-between scrambled eggs and fresh bread and artistically arranged fruit. The scent alone was enough to make his stomach rumble.

Alex remembered the nausea from the evening before. He hadn't thought he would ever be hungry again and he had settled for a bland sandwich for breakfast, not in the mood for much else. His stomach, on the other hand, swiftly decided that mental trauma was good and all, just not if it got in the way of that kind of food, the traitor.

Yassen had probably planned that, too. He certainly looked a little too amused by the way Alex's attention kept drifting to the breakfast spread.

"That looks like bribery," Alex said. "Or a reward."

"I believe it's normally referred to as breakfast. You did not eat much this morning. I expect you have realised by now that this was somewhat of a mistake. It seemed sensible to keep food around with a teenager present."

Yeah, definitely amused to Alex's experienced ear. It sounded like someone from Sagitta had tattled, though if that was the result, Alex couldn't say he minded. He was sure there was some sort of ulterior motive, there usually was, but that could wait until later. A glanced confirmed that Yassen meant it and for a while Alex cheerfully ignored everything from security issues to Crux's lesson in favour of piling as much food as he possibly could onto the stupidly small plate that came with the breakfast display. So he could get seconds and thirds, sure. That wasn't the point.

A good half an hour and a somewhat demolished breakfast later, Yassen finally broke the silence. All he'd had was a civilised cup of coffee. That was pretty much the only thing on the table that Alex hadn't touched. That, and the chocolate and avocado gloop that tried to masquerade as some sort of healthy Nutella. Alex wasn't falling for that one.

"Your impressions from the interrogation," Yassen said and continued before Alex could answer. "I have seen Crux's report. I want a report in your own words."

The essential parts of it, then. Yassen had no patience for needless details. "The sniper said he had been hired by Robert Warren, one of the people whose territory Yu took over. Crux thinks Warren could be a scapegoat. I agree."

"And your reasoning?"

Alex took a deep breath. "It makes no sense. I looked him up last night and it looks like he pretty much just reclaimed his territory when Yu died but he's never shown an interest in expanding beyond that. There's been the usual things, a couple of assassination attempts and one attempted kidnapping of his son by a rival, but that's it and that's nothing that hasn't happened before, either. I was there with Yu but I was just security. I had nothing to do with it. All I did was look mildly intimidating and agree with him at the appropriate times. Warren would have no reason to target me, no reason to target SCORPIA, but all the reason in the world to want to _avoid_ that sort of thing. He knows what happened last time one of the executive board took an interest in his business."

Yassen nodded slightly. "That leaves, of course, a number of other motivations. Warren could have acted on false intelligence, planted by his own enemies, yours, or SCORPIA's. It could be a false flag operation; an assassination attempt arranged for by his enemies as a way to bring SCORPIA down upon him, by our enemies as a way to test SCORPIA's response to an attack, or by some of our own people in an attempt to make room for promotions."

He made it sound so logical, like that sort of convoluted politics was the most natural thing in the world. As a member of the executive board, Alex supposed it was. He thought he had left behind all the headaches of spying – disguises and deception and questioning absolutely everything – when he had left MI6. Apparently not.

"That sounds like a lot of effort for someone to go through," he said.

Yassen shrugged slightly. "Not as much as it sounds. I have been paid well to arrange for such things in the past. A convenient assassination attempt, one or two hired assassins fed false information and conveniently too inexperienced or unskilled to get away, and a surprising number of people will question it no further. Sometimes, it is desirable for the assassination to succeed. Sometimes, it serves the situation better should it fail and the target be suitable incensed not to look too closely once the scapegoat has been found and eliminated."

Like the bombing that hadn't been anywhere near as well-organised as it could be but which Alex had figured was because of a lack of time. Like the sniper, of mediocre skill and little experience, the sort one might hire if they had no local assets and no way to get some there in time.

A couple of people supposedly hired to carry out an assassination but really only hired as bait. Meant to die, probably gruesomely and after prolonged torture, whether the assassination succeeded or not. The sniper fit that profile perfectly.

"So whoever's really behind it wanted me to survive," Alex surmised.

"Perhaps," Yassen agreed. "The competence shown was not what it could have been. Time may have played a part. It could also have been a matter of simply letting things happen. Perhaps you lived, perhaps you died. If they had no personal stake in things, it may simply not have mattered, and your reaction – SCORPIA's reaction – would be the important part."

That sounded just delightful. Alex could vividly imagine Marcus and the rest of Sagitta's reaction if anything had happened to Alex, or to Ivey or Shale in the car with him. He could just as vividly imagine Yassen's response as well. Yassen would have been patient. He would have made sure he had all the information. He would have made sure he did not overlook anything. But he would have gotten even, one target after the other until every last person somehow involved with the assassination was dead.

Something in Alex felt oddly warm at the thought that someone cared enough to do that for him. MI6 never seemed to care much if he got injured or almost killed. Just … patch him up and send him right back in. Yassen cared enough to get even. Something about that made Alex feel kind of warm and fuzzy for all that it was a completely inappropriate reaction to mass murder.

"You will have ample opportunity to question Warren about it, however."

That was what Alex had expected. It didn't make it any easier to hear it out loud.

"Why go after him at all, then? If he's only a scapegoat, I mean."

"Because he may still have valuable information and the chance exists, however slight, that he was indeed responsible."

And SCORPIA intended to make a statement. Yassen didn't have to say that one out loud. It wouldn't matter if Warren had just been caught in the crossfire; a convenient bit of bait to hide the real mastermind. SCORPIA had to prove it was every bit as strong as before Yassen took up his habit of killing executive board members, and that was it. If that required burning everything to the ground; Warren, the people behind it, whoever leaked the intel, _everyone_ … well, the statement would just be that much stronger. SCORPIA did not care about fairness and had never hesitated at indiscriminate murder if it served their purpose.

The breakfast settled heavily at the thought. Alex's mouth felt uncomfortably dry but he left his half-finished tea where it was, unwilling to risk aggravating his stomach any further.

"… Yes, sir," he finally said. Yassen hadn't said as much but at that moment he was Alex's superior, not his mentor or weird sort of parental figure.

Yassen nodded slightly. "I want a preliminary plan of attack by tomorrow evening. Use what resources you need to. You have some degree of practical experience by now."

"Yes, sir." There wasn't much else he could say to that.

"On a somewhat more welcome note, I'm sure, the last of the rewards for Kurst's demise has been paid out. There were a number of people with a financial interest in his death. Some required more incentive to pay out than others. Accounting for exchange rates and the small percentage kept by SCORPIA as payment for handling those issues, the total came to just under one and a half million American dollars."

Alex swallowed. That was – a lot of digits. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. He hadn't killed Kurst for money. He had killed him to save Jack, nothing else. He probably shouldn't have been surprised that the man had a significant bounty on his head, or the SCORPIA handled it for him like it was the most natural thing in the world. A hazy memory of Singapore drifted by. One of the people Yassen had killed back then had had a bounty on him, too, and SCORPIA had handled that one as well.

"That's a lot of money," he said when he couldn't think of anything else.

Yassen shrugged slightly. "Significantly less than some terrorists are worth. Significantly more than most of the rest of the executive board could have bragged about."

Yu had probably been worth the same. Mikato, too, maybe. Chase, Kroll, Duval … Alex doubted it. They had enemies but probably not anyone willing to pay that much money to see them dead. Had anyone claimed the bounties for them? Yassen and Dr Three had made it quite clear that it would work wonders for his reputation that he had killed Kurst. With everyone else, Yassen had done his best to make sure no one knew the truth behind it. Had Yassen laid claim to Mikato's bounty? Would the headache from the Yakuza be worth it? Alex didn't ask.

What sort of bounty had been put on Dr Three's head? Or on Yassen's? The thought came unbidden and unwanted. They were in charge of SCORPIA now; lethal and intelligent enough to have managed to take out every last bit of competition they had faced. They were dangerous people any way you looked at it.

If the bounty on Yassen wasn't larger than Kurst's already, Alex would be surprised. At the very least it would be the moment Dr Three retired and Yassen took over completely.

Yassen Gregorovich, in charge of SCORPIA, with none of the flashy tendencies or internal politics that had kept the old board reasonably in check, and with the full resources of the largest freelance terrorist organisation in the world at his beck and call … there would be a lot of people who would want him dead.

"… How much am I worth?" Alex had voiced the thought before he could stop it, his mouth acting before his brain could kick in. He could look it up. He had the clearance for it. He never had.

Yassen watched him for long seconds and when he spoke, his voice was little more than a murmur, the voice of someone talking to a skittish colt. "Are you sure you want to know?"

It would be useful to know. It would tell him how much effort someone might put into seeing him dead. It would give an idea of whether the attack in Johannesburg could in any way have had something to do with money. It was something he really should keep track of in their sort of world.

"… No," he admitted.

Yassen didn't comment but he had obviously expected that reply.

One and a half million dollars. Alex's mind couldn't quite grasp the number. One and a half million, along with whatever else he had earned that hadn't gone to paying off his student debt from Malagosto … which, from what Yassen had told him, had been most of it. He had made it a priority to make sure SCORPIA lost that hold on Alex as soon as possible. It was still a lot of money. Not enough to retire on, but more than most people would ever own, and all he'd had to do for it was murder seventeen people in cold blood and look the other way with a number of other murders.

And now he would have to do it again. He would need to find a way to target Warren without killing the man or destroying important potential evidence in the process. He would need several combat teams beyond just Sagitta. He would -

 _Combat teams._ The term made his mind grind to a halt. Combat team, which was really just SCORPIA's slightly more politically correct term for _mercenary team._ They were SCORPIA's but put enough money on the table, and they would be available for whatever a client would need, too. It wouldn't even need to be some large operation. SCORPIA had combat teams permanently stationed several places in the Middle East and Central America; support for security companies and drug lords and whoever else could pay for it.

SCORPIA had mercenaries. Alex had money. Even if Yassen wouldn't sign off on the order, Alex had money of his own now. The thought alone made him feel somewhat dirty, like he needed a shower; the fact that his mind went so easily to that sort of solution, but if it meant he didn't have to get involved himself, didn't have to risk Sagitta, didn't have to kill his eighteenth or nineteenth or twentieth person -

"No." Yassen's voice cut through his thoughts, almost amused.

The man was a mind-reader, Alex wasn't even joking about it any more.

"I didn't say anything," Alex objected.

"You considered it," Yassen said, "and while I appreciate your ability to adapt to SCORPIA's approach, the task of ensuring this does not happen again falls to you. Not whoever you would hire to act in your place."

 _Your ability to adapt to SCORPIA's approach._ Something about that really made him want a shower.

"… Yes, sir." Alex squished the neglected teenage part of him that wanted to say _whatever_ instead. Yassen probably knew, anyway, but politely ignored it.

"Now …" Something shifted in Yassen's expression, an indefinable thing that Alex couldn't explain but which made him sit a little straighter and sent every instinct on high alert. "Would you like to tell me exact what you thought you were doing, arguing with the good doctor?"

That was not a question. That was a demand for an explanation, and Alex had the reason for the generous breakfast display right there. A trap. Get him relaxed and comfortable and then spring the surprise on him. He should have known something was up. The chocolate croissant had tasted suspiciously like whole grain.

Alex was quiet for long seconds. Considered several approaches and discarded all of them. In the end he settled for blunt honesty.

"… that I wasn't going to torture someone, that I wasn't going to agree just because he said so, and you can both very politely go _fuck yourselves_ if you think you can make me. That's what I thought."

" _Alex._ " Yassen could put a world of meaning into one single word.

" _No._ " Alex couldn't, but he could put in the one meaning that really mattered.

For a long while they just watched each other, Yassen's expression utterly unreadable and Alex utterly unwilling to back down.

"I told you to convince the good doctor," Yassen finally said. "I had hoped I had taught you enough common sense that it would not be necessary to remind you not to argue with the world's pre-eminent expert in torture. You are valuable to his plans. You are not irreplaceable."

Was that concern? It sounded like it. Maybe Alex had pushed it a bit too far, even he would admit that. He could still remember the electric feeling of actually standing up to Dr Three, the terrifying mix of defiant elation and bone-deep dread that he was going to spend the rest of his short, miserable existence as the doctor's research subject … and, just as vividly, the minor panic attack he'd had afterwards, in the privacy of his own bathroom. However private anything really was at Malagosto. There were probably cameras. Creeps, the lot of them.

"So I should just roll over and do as he says? He wouldn't have let me borrow Crux if I hadn't argued. You're the ones who wanted a successor," Alex said. "Someone to take over SCORPIA. I'm not going to be a very good successor if I roll over the first time someone says no."

"A successor," Yassen agreed, "when you are of the _appropriate age and level of training._ "

Alex fell silent, the next argument stuck in his throat before he could voice it. Yassen was not the type to show emotion. The emphasis alone was enough to tell him that this was something unusual and that made him shut up and listen.

"It could be another decade," Yassen continued. "When you are twenty-five, perhaps. Certainly well past your twentieth birthday. You have much to learn. To rush the matter would be to do both of us a disservice. Your training as an assassin and spy will do little to help you. You will need to understand how SCORPIA works and her place among her clients and competitors. You will need a solid understanding of politics and history. You will need training in psychology, to understand not merely your clients and enemies but your employees and operatives as well. You will need a solid foundation in economics and administration, in military strategy, in languages, in warfare, in science. You proved to the doctor that you have the stubbornness to succeed but you have years of training still to come. You are valuable but you are not irreplaceable. The good doctor has calmed down over the years. This matters little. The wrong word on the wrong day has still seen individuals – students, soldiers, valuable operatives – kept as research subjects."

 _So don't push it,_ Yassen didn't need to say. Alex got that just fine. He had known it was a risk to argue with the doctor. He would still have done it, even with Yassen's words in mind. He supposed he would just have to be a little more careful about it next time.

"I know what he's capable of." Alex couldn't help the small bit of annoyance. He had been alone with the doctor for months, thank you. He knew exactly what that man could do.

"Do you? You refused to watch the evidence of Grief's dissection. It will only take me a minute or so to find the recording again, perhaps along with Howell's demise." Yassen's words were ruthless. There was not a drop of cruelty in them, just cold, merciless matter of fact and Alex swallowed hard at the reminder.

Julius Grief, who had been fifteen, who had worn Alex's face, who had been taken apart because MI6 had used him, because Dr Three liked his research, and because the doctor apparently _liked_ Alex. Ash, who had been a traitor – to Alex's family, to MI6, to ASIS, to SCORPIA, to Yu, to _everyone_ – and had paid the price for it; who had probably been wrung dry of information over hours and days until he begged for death -

"The good doctor," Yassen continued mercilessly, "found the state of Howell's internal injuries quite fascinating. It was a severe injury and he lived with it for fifteen years. It is not often one has the chance to see the effects of time on such damage to the human body."

Alex didn't speak. He could vividly imagine it, graphic lessons at Malagosto and at Crux's hand had ensured that, and he wanted to throw up again. It was too easy to imagine Ash instead of the sniper from Crux's little lesson in practical interrogation, too easy to imagine his face and his voice and -

Alex took a deep breath. Forced the images aside and tried to get the nausea back under control.

"People have vanished before," Yassen said when Alex remained silent. "I can do nothing to protect you if I cannot find you. Do you think the doctor cannot simply make any evidence vanish? Do you believe that there are not rooms in his building unseen by outsiders? That he does not have contingency plans? Do not antagonise him. His favour is still fickle. He merely hides it better these days."

Definitely concern. Alex wasn't sure what to say. He would try not to be reckless about it but … he couldn't promise anything. He would argue again if he had to because however hard Yassen had worked to wear down his morals, Alex still had limits. He still had those points, however rare, where he went _this far and no further,_ and he would cling to those. Even against Dr Three. Even with the horrible reminder of just what the man could do.

Was that why Yassen had left his tracker in place? Dr Three had to know it was there, though. Maybe a small bit of added security? Even Dr Three couldn't take everything into account. He might forget about it if he did target Alex one day. And the tracker transmitted in real-time. Maybe the information it would send before it was disabled would give Yassen enough to find him.

Sometimes it felt like his life was nothing more than a long series of questions with random breaks of second-guessing himself.

Yassen still wanted an answer. Alex still wasn't sure what to say.

"… All right," he settled for. It wasn't really an answer and definitely not a promise he knew he would break later, anyway, but it seemed to be enough. Short enough that his nausea allowed it, too. Yassen had to know it, but he didn't mention it.

"You inherited your father's luck." Yassen's comment was little more than a sigh.

Something about the reminder made Alex bristle. "His ran out."

"Did it?" Yassen's voice gave nothing away.

"My parents were _murdered_ , in case you forgot."

"But you lived. The most precious thing in their lives and, I suspect, the reason Hunter wanted out of his undercover assignment. For fourteen years, SCORPIA never even remembered your existence. Had Ian Rider not insisted on an MI6 career, you could have lived the rest of your life out of SCORPIA's sight."

"Or I could have been dead from a genetically modified smallpox virus."

Yassen shrugged, ever pragmatic. "The possibility exists."

Sometimes Alex really missed how simple life had been before MI6, when his most pressing worry had been when Ian would be home and if – when – his entire life would be uprooted for months or years again. There were a lot of things about the world he had slept better not knowing.

Alex fell silent. Fiddled with his mostly-empty teacup but didn't refill it. He didn't think his stomach felt up for it yet.

"Why me?" he finally asked. "We have people in Australia. They know the area and local organised crime. The assignment should have been passed on to them, maybe with an operative to keep things in order. I'm supposed to delegate. That was my first lesson."

 _I don't want to do it_ , Alex didn't say and didn't need to. Not with Yassen.

"Because you need the experience. Because it is a long, slow process to make a name for yourself. Because you were the target. And because you are my second in command and such are your orders."

Sometimes Alex almost forgot that part. Sometimes it was impossible not to remember. He got the impression that Yassen preferred his willing cooperation but that didn't mean Yassen was above that sort of order.

It didn't make it any easier for Alex, though. He had expected that explanation but had to try, anyway, just for his own peace of mind. That didn't mean he had to like it.

"I don't think 'Because I said so' is supposed to be good parenting," he said, just a little snarkily. Maybe it wasn't the best idea but he would blame teenage hormones. Teenage hormones and Rider genes.

Something flickered through Yassen's eyes, so brief that Alex had no chance to identify it.

"I think," Yassen murmured, "that I have committed significantly worse parenting sins than that, should anyone keep count."

Alex swallowed. The jab suddenly felt a lot more serious than he had intended. He rarely ever thought about their relationship, if only because he had no idea what Yassen even was to him. Mentor, superior, commanding officer, protector, older brother, occasional father-ish figure … it was easier not to have to put words to something he wasn't even sure how to describe.

"… You've kept me alive. You've taught me to survive."

"Yes," Yassen agreed, and the word sounded impossibly heavy to Alex, "I have."

Almost two years. Did Yassen ever regret it? Alex wondered now. Yassen had been all set for a nice, quiet retirement. Without Alex, the board would likely never have taken that much of an interest in him. Yassen might even have retired before they could. Had his house in Saint Petersburg long before Miami and the board's attention ever became a problem. And now he had Alex to deal with, the sixteen-year-old son of his former mentor, and Alex would be the first to admit he wasn't always the easiest person to handle. Was it worth it? Trading a peaceful retirement for an alliance with Dr Three and future sole control of SCORPIA? Yassen didn't want power. Mostly, he just wanted to be left alone.

Alex looked down at his hands that had suddenly become the most fascinating thing in the world.

Did Alex himself regret it? He wished he could say yes. He wished he could say no, too. Most days, he simply wasn't sure. What had the alternative been? He would never know. All he could do was make the most of what he had now, for himself and Jack and Yassen and Sagitta.

"Alex."

Alex looked up and met Yassen's eyes. Sometimes his brain seemed like it never shut up. Sometimes it seemed like if it didn't have enough to worry about, it would find something on its own. Yassen probably knew. He looked … faintly sympathetic, Alex supposed. Faintly.

"I do not give such orders because I delight in your struggle with them. You need to learn, and this is an opportunity to gain such experience in a reasonably safe situation. Warren is likely a scapegoat; you are unlikely to face highly-qualified resistance. This is part of your education. You may still back out, but I think we both know that you would not take that option. Is it still a risk? Yes. Could we have delegated the assignment to another operative? Certainly. That is not the point. The point is to allow you to gain the experience you will need later, and gain it in such a way that when you face a far more dangerous foe, you will be better prepared. Listen to your commander. Use combat teams familiar with such assignments. Perhaps bring in a local operative to assist. Then carry out your orders and hunt down those responsible."

It was more of an explanation than Yassen normally bothered to give. Still cold and clinical but it made sense and Alex needed to hear the words. He had been around Dr Three for too long, he realised. He had started to see that echo of sadism even in Yassen. Even in someone who might have put Alex through hell at times but had only ever done so to see him survive.

Alex waited a heartbeat. Let the explanation settle and ease the knot in his chest a little.

"… Yes, sir."

The words came easier this time. Yassen must have noticed, too, because there was a flicker of faint, fond approval in his expression.

"You have a check-up this afternoon," he said. "A precaution after everything. The rest of the day is your own."

An actual, legitimate almost-day off. Alex had a lot to do. A plan of attack to work out, an endless list of homework he was always behind on, but … maybe that could wait. Just a little.

"Thank you."

This time the amusement was obvious in the slight twitch of Yassen's lips. Maybe he knew Alex planned to waste his afternoon entirely and obviously didn't mind.

"Dismissed."

Alex was out the door before he could change his mind.

* * *

Next: Skipping school for fun and profit. Well, mainly fun.


	88. Downtime

"You, Mr Rider, are a bit of a trouble magnet."

The comment greeted Alex when he stepped into Malagosto's small clinic. Dr Javadi did not sound surprised. Alex supposed she wouldn't be, given that she had access to his medical files.

Alex shrugged. "I think it's genetic, ma'am," he admitted. The Rider genes, not the Beckett ones. At least that was the impression he got based on his family history. That was what Yassen seemed to blame, too.

"I wouldn't be surprised." She picked up his file and gestured towards the cot. "Shirt off, Mr Rider. Let me see how your chest handled things. You should be fine but it never hurts to be sure. Any soreness from the seatbelt?"

Alex slipped off his shirt and settled down, used to the routine by now. The air was a little cool as always, the air conditioning a soft whisper in the otherwise silent room. He didn't mind.

"A little. Not much. It doesn't hurt when I move or breathe, not worse than before." That and a faint bruise that was already fading was all the physical evidenced he had of the explosion that had very nearly killed him. A reminder that he likely owed his life to Ivey's instincts and four and a half ton of heavily armoured car.

Javadi made a low sound of agreement. "I don't expect anything that will delay your recovery. I have seen people walk away unharmed from worse attacks if they happened to be in a sufficiently armoured car. Have you started on your medical books?"

Another entry on his long list of things to do. It was something he kind of wanted to do, unlike some of it, and the books had been genuinely interesting so far, but still one more thing that demanded time he didn't have much to spare of as it was.

"Some," he admitted. "I've been kept pretty busy."

Javadi made another small sound of agreement. "Idle hands," she said absently. "Summarise the most recent chapter you read. Keep it concise."

Alex didn't sigh. Just started talking as Javadi began the familiar check-up. At least that sort of surprise quiz was something he was already painfully familiar with.

* * *

It was past two by the time Alex escaped. Outside he paused to take a breath of fresh air and just soak up the sunlight. Mace – his babysitter and security for the afternoon – let him. He didn't ask how the check-up had gone, either. He had been responsible for Alex's initial check-up after the attack in the first place so he knew Alex was doing just fine. No new injuries, anyway, so Alex still had permission from Dr Javadi to continue with his painfully strict workout routine to get him back in proper shape.

"All right?" Mace finally asked when Alex didn't speak.

"Yeah." Alex took another slow breath. Felt every muscle in his body slowly ease a little after days of constant tension. "I'm going to waste the rest of the day. I don't want to do a single sensible, productive thing."

They had to plan the attack but that could wait until morning. It would have to. Alex had been given the rest of the day to himself and his brain had already taken the chance to go AWOL for the afternoon. The last thing he would be able to focus on was military strategy.

Mace's lips twitched slightly. "We kind of expected that."

He didn't sound surprised. Alex supposed they knew him pretty well by now. Even difficult assignments together would eventually leave enough downtime to get to know each other, even just a little, and Alex knew he was awfully social for an assassin. He wasn't sure Yassen entirely approved of that but he had never commented on it and so Alex had stubbornly stuck with that tiny bit of his old self.

Alex took another deep breath before he headed towards the guest quarters. Mace went with him. Yassen's orders not to let him out of sight were obviously still in effect. The grounds were empty, the compound quiet, and the whole thing strangely homey in a school-for-assassins sort of way. The students had just left for botany, the last lesson of the day. Since that wasn't on the list of classes Jack had to take, she would have self-study instead.

For a little while neither spoke. Alex wondered if Sagitta felt as uncomfortable at the school as he had to begin with. Mace eventually broke the silence when they stopped by the entrance to building.

"Have you decided on a plan for the rest of the day?"

"Dinner in Abu Dhabi with Jack." Well, hopefully. He planned to do his best to lure her along, anyway. "Something nice and simple."

Mace nodded. "Nothing fancy, then?"

Alex remembered the Countess and shook his head. "If her classes are anything like mine, she gets enough of that already."

Mace made a low, thoughtful sound. "All right. We'll see what we can do. Can we trust you not to get into trouble the rest of the way to her while we get things arranged?"

Well, it was _Malagosto_ , but - "I'll try," Alex promised.

He didn't try to tell Mace that they didn't have to handle things and that he could do that himself just fine. It was part of their job now, keeping him from getting into trouble – intentionally or not – and he tried not to make that difficult for them. He wouldn't have wanted to risk Yassen's wrath, either, in their place.

Alex took another moment to enjoy the sunlight, then stepped inside the building while Mace stayed outside to contact the rest of the team and get things arranged. Alex wasn't blind to the fact that the man hadn't needed to. He could easily have handled that quick call while he kept an eye on Alex and Jack's conversation. It was an excuse to give Alex a few minutes sort of to himself and he appreciated it.

The guest quarters were silent, Jack the only current resident. A guest lecturer was scheduled to arrive Monday but for now Jack had the place to herself.

Alex, sensibly, kept an eye on the teachers' version of the weekly schedule whenever possible. It gave him advance warning if any surprises had been planned, and after Jack's arrival, it gave him an idea of what she was up to as well. In this case, it let him know well in advance that there was a surprise exercise planned for that evening and lasting until noon. Dinner would be quite abruptly cancelled, and he expected there would be a number of tired, hungry students by the end of it. Unlike the students, the instructors could switch classes around to ensure they got some sleep. Unlike the students, the instructors also had access to the kitchens and knew what was planned. Alex had tried one of those prolonged exercises, too. They had gone straight from that to the usual afternoon classes, no chance to change their clothes or eat, much less sleep. Gordon Ross had spent the entire afternoon lesson eating a belated full Scottish breakfast in front of them while they fiddled with bomb diagrams. The full two hours of it.

Alex was a little disappointed but not really surprised he wouldn't be up there on a rooftop, sniping students with a paintball rifle again. He was ridiculously busy, still recovering, and someone had just tried to kill him. If Alex had been one of Malagosto's instructors, he would have been cautious about anything that might annoy Yassen Gregorovich, too – including wasting his second in command's precious time or risk his health.

The whole thing did give him a great excuse to get out of there, though, and his knock on Jack's door was a bit more cheerful than it probably should have been.

" _It's open!"_ Jack's voice was muffled by the door but clear enough to be understood.

Alex slipped inside and closed the door behind him. Jack didn't look surprised to see him.

"No one else would knock quite that way," Jack said fondly in response to his unvoiced question. "And definitely not in a school full of wannabe assassins. Don't you have a to-do list that's even longer than mine?"

"Yassen gave me the rest of the day off," Alex replied and neatly dodged the part about his towering pile of homework. Jack let him. "Did you get the assignment done? The bugs in the suitcase?"

"Handed it in this morning. I got a whole two hours of sleep. I'm thinking a couple of sandwiches and an early night sounds like a good plan."

"… Yeah, about that." Alex coughed. "Early dinner in Abu Dhabi? My treat. Sagitta will be there, too, Yassen won't let me leave without security, but otherwise it'll be just us, all nice and quiet."

"A- _lex_." She drew his name out in the familiar way that meant _explain, now._

"Surprise overnight exercise," Alex admitted. "Nothing you'd get tangled up in, you get to avoid those, but they're going to pull the students straight out of the dining hall the moment food is served, so unless you want to whip up dinner, breakfast, and lunch from the mini fridge …"

"Let me think about that," Jack said dryly. "Restaurant food I don't have to pay for, or candy bars and pretzels for dinner. What a decision."

"I've got fresh fruit as well," Alex offered. Because someone kept refilling the fruit bowl Alex could have sworn was only supposed to be used for decorative purposes. He blamed Yassen's orders.

"Right. That makes all the difference. Tell me there'll be proper dessert, wherever we're going, and you've got a deal."

"All we can eat, even if we have to go somewhere else to get it." Yassen wouldn't approve. Yassen also wasn't the one paying, and Yassen had given him the rest of the day off, so there. Did Abu Dhabi have dessert buffets somewhere? Alex didn't know but it sounded like a worthwhile endeavour to find out.

"Sold." Jack slammed her book closed. Electrical engineering, Alex noted. Probably her independent classes … that, or her classmates had done exceptionally badly at bomb making and Gordon Ross had lost patience with the lot of them and started them over from scratch in their own precious and very limited free time. Alex hadn't heard any complaints, though, so he assumed it was the former.

"Lead the way," she said. "And remind me to get some takeaway for breakfast and lunch tomorrow, just in case."

Sometimes Jack was just a little wicked, and Alex loved her for it.

* * *

In the end, they settled for an improvised picnic of sorts. Between Marcus' twitchy look at any restaurant they hadn't had the chance to check out in advance and Alex's desire for a little peace and quiet, it seemed like the best solution.

They ended up with proper greasy takeaway on a reasonably remote bit of beach, sheltered by the three massive SUVs that someone, probably Adams, had procured for the evening. There was nothing but sand around them, the dry desert behind them, and a sea that seemed to go on forever up ahead. Alex had kicked off his shoes and dug his toes into the warm sand and just enjoyed the small bit of freedom.

It was a world away from London. From London, and Russia, and Singapore, and a dozen other places he had been to as SCORPIA's obedient little child assassin, and Alex savoured every second of it.

The pizza was a little gritty after a breeze had kicked up the sand but no one seemed to care, because all but two of the boxes were empty, and Alex doubted they would last much longer, either. A lone, sand-encrusted chicken wing kept a handful of soggy fries and a minor mountain of napkins company in a trash bag, and the giant box of doughnuts – Jack's fault, that one – looked somewhat less giant after eight adults and a teenage boy had raided it. Jack could demolish a pile of junk food with the best of them, and Alex knew from painful experience that Malagosto's standards for physical fitness took a lot of energy. Jack was in much better shape now than she had been a month ago. All the more reason to enjoy the doughnuts, if you asked Alex.

His fingers were somehow both greasy and sticky, he had sand and sugar glaze under his nails, and he had a piece of probably-chicken stuck between his molars that absolutely refused to come out. He had sand in his hair, his clothes, and his underwear, he was probably going to get queasy from the sugar rush and grease, and his skin felt a little itchy from the salt.

All in all, Alex felt better than he had in months.

He contemplated the doughnut box and the small pile of doughnuts still in it. He had room for one more. Probably two. Three might be pushing it but he wasn't about to rule it out. His hand hovered indecisively. Chocolate? Sugar glaze? The blueberry tasted more like blue than actual berry and he wasn't a fan of cinnamon. Maybe sprinkles?

Before he could decide, Jack unapologetically snagged the last strawberry doughnut the second before Aranda could.

"Too slow." She took a large bite, probably the grown-up version of 'I licked it, it's mine'.

"You know those things are terrible for you," Aranda commented and grabbed a blueberry one instead. "They'll clog your arteries and do horrible things to your cholesterol. And don't get me started on the sugar."

Jack swallowed her bite. "I know; I'm doing you a favour by eating them. It's got berries in it, though. That makes it healthy."

"You mean food dye and artificial flavouring."

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to."

Alex smiled and grabbed the closest doughnut – _hello_ _,_ _chocolate_ – and let the words flow over him. Jack had met Sagitta on the _Fer de Lance_ on his birthday, but Yassen had been around then. This time it was just the nine of them without the intimidating presence that was Yassen Gregorovich. Jack and Sagitta had clicked well enough during their first meeting but there had still been that bit of caution. That caution had faded fast this time and eased into casual talk and banter. Alex was happy. It was an odd little group but in every way that counted, they and Yassen really were the closest thing to family he had these days. If Sagitta was going to be his permanent security team, he wanted them to know and get along with Jack. If anything happened while she was there with him, he wanted her as safe as possible.

Sometimes Alex wondered what life had been like when everything hadn't had ulterior motives. Then he remembered Ian's choice of child-rearing methods and some dark, bitter part of him wondered if he had ever known at all. At least his ulterior motives in trying to have Jack and Sagitta get along were well-meaning. Then again, maybe Ian's decisions had been, too. Alex would never know.

It wasn't a thought he wanted to linger on and he shoved it aside before it could fester.

Alex leaned back against the massive wheel of the closest car and crewed his way through the doughnut. Out in the Persian Gulf, the white and grey shapes of distant ships dotted the horizon. Up above, a plane turned in a wide arch before it continued onward; from Abu Dhabi or Dubai, Alex couldn't tell.

The sun had almost set among the desert sand. The shadows had grown longer fast over the past half an hour. The temperature had slowly dropped. No one seemed to be in any real hurry to get back, though. If they needed light, one of the cars would handle that just fine.

Alex had a ton of work to do. His mental list of things he was behind on seemed endless and he was firmly ignoring just how much planning they would have to do to handle Warren. That would just have to wait until tomorrow, even if it sometimes felt like he would never be done.

Jack finished up her doughnut and glanced over at Alex.

"Okay?"

Alex let out a soft breath. "Yeah. Just – reminded of work. It can wait."

It was the simpler, mostly truthful answer. He really didn't want to explain everything else he had been thinking about.

Jack frowned, her good mood gone. "You're supposed to get the time needed to recover."

Alex winced. "Technically I am. I'm on light duty until I've recovered. I can still do planning and paperwork and stuff. I only got cleared for the meeting in Johannesburg last week. I've started to work out again but it'll still be another … two months before I'm cleared for active duty?"

He glanced over at Mace for confirmation. The initial estimate had been four months total, maybe even more, but he felt kind of all right. A bit sore sometimes, still a bit more tired than usual, but … okay.

Mace didn't even try to pretend he hadn't been eavesdropping. "Two months," he agreed. "You're actually doing better than expected. If you're really lucky, maybe a week less. Just don't be stupid or get yourself injured again."

Jack didn't look happy but didn't argue. Russia and Kurst didn't bring back happy memories for either of them and while maybe she had expected 'time needed to recover' to mean that Alex would mostly just do his homework, Alex knew better. Nile had mentored him and taught the occasional class at Malagosto while he had still been recovering. SCORPIA knew exactly how to keep their people useful even when they were on medical leave.

Alex grabbed another doughnut, more for something to fiddle with than anything else. There were still a few left but everyone seemed to more or less have reached their limit for grease and sugar for the night.

He glanced over and caught Jack's expression again and tried to think of another subject. Something a little less likely to upset her. Off to the side, towards the desert, the sun finally set. Alex pulled a piece off of his doughnut and popped it into his mouth. He was pretty full but there was always room for more dessert. Just a bite.

"Guess who just got pulled away from dinner, by the way." Maybe it was Yassen's slightly sadistic sense of humour that had infected him, but surprise night-time exercises were just more fun when they happened to someone else.

Jack looked up. The reference clicked in an instant and she checked her watch. "So six forty-five 'till … when do they get a break again?"

"Dinner tomorrow, probably," Alex admitted. "That's what we got when they did the same to us. Maybe a quick lunch if they do really well but that's not the plan, anyway."

And maybe nothing until breakfast if they did really bad. Alex wouldn't rule it out.

"… That's a long time to be hungry."

Hungry, exhausted, under fire, sleep-deprived, and with no idea of how long it would go on, and the instructors would have timed it for the moment the food appeared. None of the students would have had anything substantial since lunch. Alex's agreement came from painful experience.

"Yup. Ross slept in and had a late breakfast in front of us. We didn't even get to change our clothes before class."

Jack paused. She had probably realised just what she would be sharing a classroom with come tomorrow. Mud, sweat, gun-smoke, maybe even a good round of vomit if someone didn't take well to an hour or more in the back of a bumpy truck at night. "Sounds stinky."

"Ross didn't seem to mind." If anything, he had seemed to enjoy his breakfast all the more for it. Gordon Ross could be a bit of a sadist when the mood struck him.

Marcus looked over, his attention drawn by the conversation. The rest of the team seemed to have picked up on it, too. Alex wasn't surprised and didn't really mind. The beach was mostly quiet but for the sound of the waves and distant traffic, and it wasn't anything classified. He wouldn't have brought it up otherwise. It was something familiar to them as soldiers and familiar to Jack as a resident of the school. Common ground of sorts.

"Training exercise?" Marcus asked.

"Yeah. Surprise exercise tonight. Normally they're on the weekly schedule but not always. Jack's a guest, not a student, and gets to avoid them. Everyone else is going to be very tired and hungry tomorrow. Of course, if you end up behind on homework or don't get an assignment done in time because of it, that's your own fault for not planning better." Alex picked another bite off of his doughnut. "And since it's Malagosto and you pay tuition, you get to pay for the abuse, too. Ross planned this one with Yermalov. I think he's convinced it's the best thing since the Fairbairn–Sykes."

Jack gave him an odd look. "I think the expression is 'since sliced bread'."

"Not if you're Gordon Ross."

Marcus snorted. "We know that type. What does tuition for a school of murder run in, anyway?"

Marcus was not what anyone would call a subtle man. Alex answered, anyway.

"A _lot._ " He paused but figured it wasn't like that was classified, either. Just … generally not talked about. He knew the size of the bill he had been presented with, and the several days he had spent with Malagosto's administrative staff proved his bill was at the low end. "Around a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a month is the standard these days, and that number goes up if you're sent on additional courses. The average student spends four to six months at the school and will spend the first three to four years of their exclusive contract paying that off. Assuming they survive that long, anyway. The lost profit from students that don't live long enough to pay it off in full is part of that. SCORPIA expects a percentage of the students to fail, and the cost of that is added to everyone else's tuition costs."

Put that way, it sounded even more cold-blooded than usual. Almost two years with Yassen and SCORPIA meant that Alex could still rattle off the explanation with about as much emotion as a particularly unenthusiastic accountant. Malagosto didn't see the students as human beings, just numbers in a collection of spreadsheets. Alex had spent enough time around the staff that he had started to do the same, just a little, despite everything he had done to avoid it.

"… So they wanted trained assassins and found a way to make their assassins pay for it themselves," Shale summarised.

That was as concise of a description as Alex had ever heard about the school.

"… Yup. Pretty much. I hope someone got a bonus for that idea, because they've saved SCORPIA a lot of money."

"Huh. Pretty smart," Marcus admitted.

 _If you're not one of the suckers paying for it, anyway,_ he didn't say out loud. Marcus did have some vague sense of diplomacy … or more like survival instincts. Alex would have agreed with that comment, but that didn't rule out the risk that one of said suckers at the school caught word of it somehow and decided to take it badly. Some of those assassins could be petty, spiteful bastards, too.

Alex wondered if Marcus actually knew he had been a possible candidate for a place as one of those suckers. He decided to just leave the matter alone. Somehow he doubted it. SCORPIA liked their secrets and Marcus hadn't needed to know.

"And since Jack is a guest," he said instead, "she gets to avoid all of that. The exercises and the bill afterwards."

It wasn't a bad deal at all … if you ignored the fact that she was there as a guest of Dr Three, and that 'guest' was just a more polite word for 'insurance', anyway.

Marcus nodded and pushed the doughnut box back within Jack's reach. "Sounds to me like 'relax, have another doughnut, and enjoy the fact that you're not the one out there getting reamed'," he suggested. "Nothing better than to wallow a bit in other people's misery."

"You're a terrible man." Jack didn't sound all that upset. She also picked another doughnut. "Just dreadful."

"That's what they pay us for."

Jack laughed, startled but genuine, and settled down next to Alex. With the interesting parts of the conversation obviously done and no longer worth listening in on, low voices picked up again around them. The sky grew darker. The temperature slowly dropped. The first stars appeared.

"You know," Jack said when the doughnut box was almost empty and no one paid too much attention to them any more, "you're still not all that subtle when you want to change the topic."

Alex shrugged, a little embarrassed. "It did its job."

Jack gave him a fond smile. "It did. You didn't have to, but it was a sweet thought. I'll be fine. You be fine, too, and we can be fine together."

"I'll try," Alex promised, all he could really do.

"And that's all I can ask for."

Jack leaned over and ruffled his hair like she had done so many times in the past, and Alex felt the constant ball of anxiety in his chest unravel just a little. They should get back, he knew. He needed his sleep. Jack needed her sleep. So did Sagitta, for that matter. They all needed some rest after everything that had happened. The sensible thing to do would be to get everyone up and moving and back home, whatever 'home' happened to be.

Under a canopy of stars, on a remote beach, and for a brief evening all of his own, Alex couldn't bring himself to do it.

The sensible thing would be to leave.

They stayed.

Alex Rider would deal with tomorrow when he had to, and not a second sooner.

* * *

Next: Planning and plotting. And not the sort that Alex likes.

A/N: Happy half a million words? Thank you so much for reading, for your comments, and for your patience with this monstrosity. It would have been a lot shorter without it, I suspect.


	89. Countdown (Reprise)

A/N: I'm tired of fiddling with this chapter, so this is how it's going to be. I'm also hideously behind on review replies – I plan to get to those tomorrow. Sorry about that. Have a slightly longer chapter as apology?

* * *

Alex woke up on Jack's couch at the crack of dawn to an oversized mug of coffee on the table in front of him.

Alex stared. The Starbucks mermaid stared back at him.

"We got half a day to ourselves in Dubai the other weekend," Jack said. "The coffee cups here are stupid small. Turns out that terrorist organisations have no sense of practicality."

She sounded unpleasantly awake for … six o'clock, maybe, based on the light outside? Alex dug out his watch from the pile of clothes. Six fifteen. In Yassen terms, that was practically sleeping the day away. He felt tired and a little meh, not quite bloated and not quite queasy but … still maybe a little, sort of.

Maybe the fifth doughnut had been a mistake. The doughnuts, the greasy takeaway, the pile of fries, and the past-midnight bedtime, now that he was at it.

On a normal day, Jack would have been in the middle of morning workout. Alex would, too. With a training exercise in progress and the actual students still gone, the world outside was silent and what Alex could see of the grounds through the window were utterly deserted.

He sat up. Stretched and felt several things in his back pop. Then settled down with his mug. The coffee looked strong enough that he suspected Jack had run it through the coffee machine twice for extra caffeine but it was also loaded with milk and sugar to make it drinkable. Alex still preferred tea but coffee like that was … drinkable. And practically a matter of survival some days.

There was milk and cereal on the table courtesy of Jack, the supplies she had bought the evening before. There was probably some sort of food to be had in the dining hall, even if just bread and cereal for the staff that had stayed behind, but it was nicer just to have the morning to themselves.

Dr Three, of course, would get exactly what he wanted from the kitchen, when he wanted it, Alex was sure of it.

Sagitta would be back at the school by eight, almost luxuriously late. Alex would have plenty of time to get ready.

Alex still had a ton of things to do. The list had grown no shorter over the course of the night.

For now he ignored it and settled down with Jack to have breakfast in comfortable silence and enjoy a calm, lazy morning for once.

* * *

Breakfast, coffee, a shower, and his Javadi-approved exercises meant that Alex looked a lot more awake and coherent than he felt a little past eight when Marcus and the rest of Sagitta greeted him. He wondered how much they had slept. They were currently sort-of stationed in a rented villa outside of Abu Dhabi. Alex assumed that would only last until someone decided what to do with them. Most likely they would be moved to Malagosto for a couple of months, since that's where Alex would be.

Alex did feel a little bad about that, and he would prefer to keep them far away from Dr Three, but the company would be nice.

They gathered in Alex's designated room in the guest quarters, still reserved for him but empty more often than not these days. It was a bit cramped but no one seemed to mind. Marcus pulled rank and technically-healed injury and claimed the couch. The table got dragged to the middle of the room and cleared to make room for laptops and papers and a place to actually work.

"All right. The basics first. What kind of resources do we have in the area?"

Maybe Marcus was more used to himself and his team on their own in a war zone somewhere, but their assignments with Alex had gotten them used to working with others, and he had adapted easily enough to Alex's new position and the perks that came with it. This would be a larger operation than the ones they had been used to before Alex but nowhere near the size of the ones they had worked on under Yassen.

Alex had expected the question, had read up on it as the very last thing before he had fallen asleep on Jack's couch in the middle of a report, and he was about to make Marcus' day a lot worse.

"Limited," Alex said bluntly. "Winston Yu ruled most of the east Australian underworld with an iron fist through his snakehead, and SCORPIA stayed out of his territory for the most part. If an operation called for anything in that area, Yu used his resources there to get it done. When Yu was assassinated, his snakehead collapsed. The individual parts were destroyed, taken out by law enforcement, or absorbed by a competitor. We have people in the area rebuilding the network but that takes time."

It had been six months. Even SCORPIA needed more time than that to rebuild what they had lost in Australia. Yu had spent almost two decades turning his snakehead into the hydra it had become. SCORPIA would need years to recover anything even close to that. Crux had been able to build up a sizeable drug operation in the ashes of her competitors in less time than that. Crux had also been stationed in Singapore for years before that and had the connections to pull it off.

SCORPIA wasn't as badly off in Australia as they were in Japan after Mikato – most of the Japanese underworld might as well have been a black hole to them at the moment – but it still wasn't pretty. Yu had been powerful enough to be able to demand that SCORPIA stayed clear of his territory and that came back to bite them now. Then again, Alex supposed that if Yu hadn't been that strong, he wouldn't have survived two decades on the executive board. He should have expected that kind of complication.

"… Wonderful." Marcus' sarcasm was not a subtle thing. "The target?"

"Robert Isaac Warren had carved out a very nice chunk of the Australian underworld for himself when Yu took an interest in his territory late last summer and _negotiated_ a suitable agreement. He basically threatened Warren's son with brainwashing, torture, and death, and conscripted Warren to work for him. When ASIS struck against Yu's snakehead, Warren dodged them and took his territory back. He's shown no interest in expanding it further and he has all the reasons in the world to avoid SCORPIA's attention after what happened last time a member of the board took an interest in him."

"So a scapegoat who may or may not know he's being targeted, who may even have made it look like he's a scapegoat in the first place to make us question the intel, and who's going to fight like a cornered rat when we find him," Marcus summarised. "A nice little clusterfuck."

Which … was a pretty fair summary. Alex shrugged and let Marcus take over since that was his area much more than Alex's, anyway.

"Right. First problem we have is the shitty intel. We'd got two months before we can go anywhere with you, so we need to get some good use out of that. Send someone you trust. Ussuri's a good option. You're stuck here until you're cleared for active duty and we're your security. Ussuri's done a good job in the past and Mr Gregorovich wouldn't have used them twice if he didn't agree."

And Danube was out of the question after Yassen had claimed them as his own security team.

"They'll need backup, several more teams, but they can handle the groundwork for you and make sure we have a better idea of what we're up against when it comes to that."

Alex nodded. Made a note on his paper. Hesitated and added another.

"We'll want an operative or two as well," he said and sounded more confident than he felt. "Someone who can get the kind of intel soldiers might not be able to. SCORPIA is building up an operation there but it might be better to pick someone else."

Because someone had leaked the intel on Alex and they still didn't know who – or who had taken advantage of it, if it hadn't been Warren. Alex expected SCORPIA's operatives in Australia to be trustworthy, if nothing else because there was no way they'd had access to that information, but he would still feel better with someone he knew.

Based on Marcus' expression, he agreed.

"… Got someone in mind?"

"Former classmate," Alex agreed. "I'll see what I can do."

Samuel, Alex's classmate at Malagosto – he had been Australian. He had done well, too; top half of the class. Young, but so was Alex, and SCORPIA had recruited him for a reason. Equally important, Alex knew him. He had seen first-hand what the man was capable of and that they could get along, and he preferred that to the wild guesswork that was picking someone based on their file alone. He would still need to check that file but barring anything hideously wrong, Alex planned to follow SCORPIA's proud tradition of promotions based on politics and send Samuel to Australia to be his his eyes and ears.

Sure, Alex expected that any sensible person on SCORPIA's payroll would at least make an effort to pretend to accept a sixteen-year-old kid's orders when said teenager was Yassen Gregorovich's right hand and apprentice. He would still prefer someone he knew he could get along with.

Marcus nodded and obviously dismissed the topic for now, trusting Alex to handle it. It was still a weird feeling sometimes to have an adult actually expect him to know what he was doing and believe him when he said something.

"We're going to end up with a lot more issues once we start digging into that intel but that's a headache for further down the road." Marcus said. "Second problem. Logistics."

Alex wondered just how long Marcus' list of problems with the operation was. Decided a moment later that he probably didn't want to know. He would find out soon enough. They had the rest of the day to get a preliminary report and plan of attack put together. Alex had the horrible suspicion they would use every minute of that.

* * *

"You managed acceptably well," Dr Three told Alex when he slipped silently into the man's office at noon.

Sagitta had vanished to find some lunch that didn't involve spending time in the snake pit that masqueraded as a dining hall. Alex had been summoned by a note delivered by one of Dr Three's silent assistants before he could do the same. He was tired and hungry and he didn't want to deal with that sort of thing. Not now.

Alex did the sensible thing, though. He threw a mental little tantrum, sighed, and got on with the program. Yassen would be proud.

Alex didn't doubt the doctor referred to the interrogation. He wasn't sure what to say to that. Thank you? He couldn't bring himself to say the words and before he could find an alternative, Dr Three continued.

"You do remain unfortunately squeamish about some necessities in our world. You are sixteen now, Alexander. Almost grown."

 _Almost grown._ Most places in the world would consider him a minor for another several years. SCORPIA always had different standards, and those standards seemed to change based on what they needed. One moment he was young. The next he was a responsible adult, old enough to know better. Then he would be back to a 'growing boy' again. And Dr Three was old. Maybe sixteen or seventeen had been the legal standard for adult when he was young. Was that the terrorist version of 'When I was your age'?

"Yes, sir." That seemed like a nice, safe answer.

Dr Three seemed to know it, too. Then again, the man was a mind reader, just like Yassen.

"Some things are necessary evils. You are not required to enjoy it, merely accept the usefulness of such methods. A lesson for another day, I suppose," the doctor said and mercifully dismissed the topic when a light knock on the door drew his attention.

Matteo stepped inside, a large tray with two fancy-looking lunch displays balanced in one hand. He set up everything on the small table without a word being spoken. Based on the swift, sure motions, it was not the first time he had handled that sort of thing.

The man finished with the table. Left and took the tray with him. Dr Three settled down and gestured for Alex to do the same.

A private lunch with the world's pre-eminent expert in torture. _Just_ the thing Alex had hoped for.

Alex took his cues from the doctor and the Countess' exacting lessons. Even Jack's exceptionally lax table manners hadn't survived Malagosto's classes.

Lunch was light, vegetarian to Alex's surprise, and something about the spices reminded him faintly of the Indian takeaway he had been used to back in London. Not that he was going to enjoy it in that sort of company, no matter how good it was.

"You have started on the preliminary plans to handle the situation in Australia," Dr Three finally said. "A military strike?"

"Yes, sir," Alex agreed. It wasn't like it was a secret. The doctor was likely to get the report almost as soon as Yassen would, and it wasn't like a combat team like Sagitta was known for subtlety. "We don't have a lot of connections there, not after Major Yu's death, and we don't have the time to build up the network needed for a more subtle approach."

"As expected," Dr Three agreed, "given that Yassen has allowed a combat team to assist with your training. Do put plans into place to take over Warren's network. It would be a shame to waste such a resource. As you noted yourself, our presence in that part of the world is unfortunately lacking these days. Winston's death was necessary but an inconvenience as well in many ways."

 _A shame to waste it._

Alex froze. Something about the words sent a chill down his spine.

He focused on Dr Three and saw dark eyes watch him sharply, looking for – something. That moment of realisation, Alex suspected. The moment when suspiciousness kicked in, when the mental game of ' _did he have something to do with it?'_ and ' _did he arrange for an attempted assassination just to have an excuse to take out Warren?'_ and _'does he just want to imply he did because it's Dr Three and mind games like that is what he does'_ descended into paranoia, and Alex was trapped between the immediate urge to react and the sharp knowledge that he was on thin ice already and the slightest mistake could leave him in a world of trouble.

Alex didn't move, didn't react, barely even dared breathe, and finally the doctor smiled. Kindly.

Alex desperately missed the weight of a weapon in his hand, for all the good that would do him against someone like Dr Three.

"Learn to see opportunities in everything you do, Alexander. Everything is a business opportunity if you have the experience and skills to take advantage of it. The old executive board was born of the intelligence world and never let go of those lethal politics, but at the heart of it we were all businessmen. Simply people looking to make a living in a rapidly changing world. A number of intelligence agents found themselves shifted to desk work or out of a job as the Cold War drew to a close. We realised sooner than most the path that history would eventually take and we took the initiative. A risk, certainly, but a profitable one. You will need the same insight. The same understanding. The same willingness to take those risks. Only then will SCORPIA thrive under your command."

Was it a test? Alex didn't think Dr Three wanted him dead, but maybe it was a lesson. Maybe a reminder that he couldn't trust anyone, maybe to teach him to be suspicious of everyone, maybe just an unsubtle hint that the man could easily have arranged for an assassination if he'd had a reason to.

…Or maybe a way to test how Alex would respond to someone trying to kill him in cold blood. Not in self defence, not in combat, but a cold-blooded assassination attempt.

It was Dr Three. Alex couldn't rule out a single one of those possibilities.

Alex's grip on his fork tightened slightly, the only reaction he allowed himself. Knew that Dr Three wanted a response, too.

"… Yes, sir."

The safe option. The expected one. Looking at the doctor, Alex didn't doubt for a second the man knew exactly where Alex's thoughts had gone.

"Do eat, Alex. You need the energy to recover."

Dr Three sounded so sincere it was practically mocking to someone who knew him. Alex had lost his appetite. He still forced himself to continue, one careful bite after the other.

He wondered if there would be a chapter in the doctor's next book about the use of painfully awkward business lunches as a method of torture. Right there and then, he wouldn't even be surprised.

* * *

"Your report?" Yassen asked that evening when Alex arrived in his penthouse apartment. Alex was sure he had been hard at work, doing … whatever the board did these days. Handled clients, maybe. Assignments. Yassen still looked as calm and collected as always.

Alex handed over the slim folder. Yassen accepted it without checking the contents. He trusted Alex to have obeyed his orders or know the consequences.

"You had lunch with the good doctor."

Alex shrugged. He wasn't sure what Yassen's point was but it wasn't like it was a secret.

"You are unsettled."

Yassen could spot that sort of thing from a mile away and Alex wasn't good at hiding it. With the preliminary report handled, his brain returned to the memories of that conversation, going over it again and again and again until all he wanted was to make it shut up.

He tried to put it into words and failed miserably.

"He implied -" … but he hadn't, not really, and Alex amended his explanation. "He made it sound like he implied he had something to do with the attempted assassination as a way to get an excuse to target Warren and take over his network."

Because nothing was ever straight-forward about SCORPIA, much less Dr Three who knew exactly how to get the reaction he wanted from Alex. It was a fight sometimes to remember to question everything, no matter how simple it seemed. Put into words it sounded stupid but … that was how it was. Alex couldn't say the man had implied that sort of thing but he couldn't say Dr Three _hadn't_ implied it, either.

Was that how the executive board politics had worked, too? No wonder Yassen had been willing to run such a huge risk to get rid of them, then. Alex couldn't imagine living like that, much less thriving with it for twenty years.

"If he wished to see you dead, you would not have survived Johannesburg."

That … wasn't much of an answer. It didn't rule out a single damn thing, either.

"That's not an answer."

"Isn't it?" Yassen continued before Alex could think of a rude reply to that. "No, he does not want you dead but his hand in the attack cannot be ruled out, either. He is certainly pragmatic enough to make use of convenient circumstances such as these. Assume everything is a test. Perhaps he had a hand in things, perhaps not. What matters now is how you choose to handle it. A descent into paranoia will eventually leave an opening for an enemy to exploit. Be too trusting and the same will happen as well. Prove that you can handle such pressure."

"So just … get used to it?" That wasn't exactly helpful.

"Try not to give him any weak spots to target," Yassen said. "Consider it an educational experience."

Had Dr Three been behind it? Could he have been? Alex still didn't know. All he could do was trust that Yassen would look into it. Much like Dr Three would probably expect, too.

Alex Rider hated politics.

* * *

After Johannesburg, another two months of recovery had seemed like forever. Caught up in everything – training, lessons, plans, a steady stream of reports – time still somehow passed too fast for Alex, days gone in the blink of an eye.

Two months had seemed like forever. With each day past, each week closer to field work, the anxious knot in Alex's chest grew tighter. He was never really alone, someone from Sagitta always close by, but sometimes he still felt lonely. In the middle of the crowded compound, surrounded by people, with Jack and Sagitta and -

\- And he was lonely. Yassen was busy; he had half a terrorist organisation to run, a reputation to rebuild, and full faith in Alex's abilities to deliver regular, accurate reports. Sagitta was friendly and social; did their best to teach him what he needed to know and give him what space they could, but they were also soldiers and didn't get that sinking sense of anxiety that would sneak up on Alex when he least expected it.

Jack – Jack would understand but she had enough to deal with and Alex did not plan to add another worry to her list. He would deal on his own because he had to. It was that simple.

The first bit of genuinely welcome news arrived on the tenth of April.

Tom had moved to Switzerland with less than two weeks of notice and without a moment of hesitation. Alex knew the Harris family life had never been good but that spoke volumes about just how bad it had ended up since Alex had left. Jean's report on the whole thing, predictably, was as curt and to-the-point as the man himself. Well, as his current identity, anyway.

 _Harris has settled well,_ the attached summary of the report noted. _MI6 is believed to have caught on to the deception, but they have made no move to target Harris. They have likely decided he is not worth the resources._

Alex wasn't entirely surprised. It was a relief to know that Tom was safely away from England, even more of a relief that Blunt and Jones had apparently decided to write him off, but it was also mostly expected. Even the fact that Alex had been behind his move to Switzerland didn't mean that much when it all came down to it. Yassen had gone through a lot of effort to convince everyone that Alex was entirely broken to his will. It would be pointless to try to use Tom Harris against him when Yassen Gregorovich had no incentive to allow Alex to do a single thing to stop it.

Yassen had some slight incentive to allow Alex to help Tom out with school and get him away from MI6, a small bit of kindness to strengthen Alex's attachment and dependency on him – Alex could imagine entirely too well what the various files on him probably said about that – but he would never allow Alex to keep an actual weakness. To MI6 – and probably the CIA and the rest of the world – Alex expected that Tom was deemed useless for now. The moment he became too much of a liability to Yassen's obedient second in command, he would be removed.

It would help keep Tom out of MI6's grubby hands. It also left a bad taste in Alex's mouth.

It was a good school. Good grades, a focus on sports, a strong alumni association. It would offer Tom a future that London and Brookland couldn't.

Alex could only hope it would somehow make up for it all.

* * *

 _i h8 u,_ Tom wrote one evening in late April to the email address that Alex had set up and given to Jerry and Jean both for exactly that purpose. _im getting tutored in maths. i hav xtra homework. like wtf ?_

Alex's lips twitched. He had kind of expected that mail. It was still a relief to get it. The fact that Tom was complaining about his tutor and maths and not something else meant that he was doing okay so far.

 _Your English has really gone downhill, too. Does your tutor know that?_

 _scrw u, im reclaiming my linguistic freedom. their making us read crime & punishment. siriosly wtf?_

 _Wow, sucks to be you, mate._

 _i h8 u,_ Tom repeated. _so much h8. this is ur fault, ill make u read my paper. in comic sans. in yellow. & therell be stupid gifs everywhere. _

Then, before Alex could answer -

 _g2g curfew say hi_

Alex didn't miss the fact that Tom had been as careful to avoid names as Alex himself had been. It was a useful lesson. Alex still felt guilty that Tom had been forced to learn it.

* * *

Tom's essay arrived in Alex's inbox two weeks later. In yellow Comic Sans and with a liberal amount of stupid, animated gifs.

Never let it be said Tom Harris was not a man of his word.

* * *

Lamarre vanished for RTI in early May. He did not return.

Alex was sort of considered part of the staff by then, if just by virtue of how long he had been around the school. If he wanted to know the full explanation behind that failure, he could get it, but he didn't ask. He could guess enough. If Lamarre had been an undercover agent, he would have been used as teaching material. The man had broken, that was all. The single moment of weakness to make SCORPIA write him off and encourage the other students to do better.

Alex had hoped Jack would manage to avoid that kind of reminder but he had also known it was pretty much a lost cause. Jack would be around the school for as long as Alex was there. At least three months worth of classes, and probably more. Odds were someone would screw up and be disposed of in the time she was there.

It hadn't really been a surprise to Alex, either. Lamarre had been pretty much the average sort of student for the school – twenty-four, former military with a brief detour to intelligence service – but he had struggled and been at the bottom of his class, always half a step behind. Even if he hadn't failed RTI, Alex knew that the odds the man would have survived his graduation assignment were low. He had been put through RTI sooner than usual, too. SCORPIA hadn't written him off in advance but three months of classes had shown he would likely not be a good investment. Alex figured it had been a test to cut their losses early if they had to.

The rest of the class would ask no questions. Alex knew what kind of students Malagosto accepted. Maybe a lot of them were social and friendly, at least if that was to their advantage, but they wouldn't even blink if one of their classmates just vanished permanently one day. Every single one of their classmates was a potential competitor as well, after all. Someone else who might get the better assignments instead. And a bad classmate was just someone who might drag them down or hold them back from learning as much as they could.

Alex remembered how he had felt when Peralta had failed RTI, the knowledge that in one of Dr Three's cells was a living, breathing human being who was about to be disposed of and there had been nothing he could do about it, and he made sure to track Jack down that evening after dinner.

"Alex?" She greeted him with a frown. She knew him well enough to tell that something was off.

There was really no nice way to say it. Alex didn't even try.

"Lamarre failed resistance to interrogation."

Jack had been there for long enough that she didn't need more of an explanation. Alex could see the moment the meaning of that sunk in, and he continued. "No one else is going to mention anything and the other students won't care, but I – you should know. I didn't want you to wonder."

Jack was still for a moment. "He was …"

 _Not a good match,_ Alex imagined Dr Steiner's report would say. _Not a worthwhile investment. Had qualities that did not match those expected in a SCORPIA operative of acceptable calibre._

He did not need to look up the file to have a good idea of what it probably said. Steiner analysed the students as much as possible before they were offered a place and that didn't let up once they actually became students – or if they failed. Whatever had made a student fail, after all, was something they might be able to spot and avoid in future students.

It could almost sound altruistic. If Alex squinted really had and gave himself a small concussion. Whatever helpfulness that analysis might offer – whatever possible students that might get turned down because they would be at high risk of failure – it was purely a by-product of saving SCORPIA's precious time and resources.

"He was … not bad," Jack finally settled on and sounded a little like she wasn't sure how to react to that. "Social. Mostly."

Which sounded about right to Alex. Friendliness and social skills didn't matter in the end if the student couldn't handle the pressure.

She didn't say anything else. If she wanted to ask, she didn't, and Alex didn't offer anything else. Alex could look it up but neither of them needed the details. Jack knew just fine what 'failed' meant to SCORPIA.

"… If I ask if they took your age into consideration when you were a student, I won't like the answer, will I?" she finally said, a little quiet but mostly resigned.

Alex shrugged. Didn't answer and didn't need to. It always felt a little uncomfortable to be reminded of his age like that. London and Ian Rider felt like a lifetime away. Sometimes he could barely remember what life had been like before SCORPIA. Before Yassen. Before a schedule that was so packed it seemed endless, and training that had been a matter of life and death, and employers that had gleefully bragged about their prized child assassin.

Jack had known Alex had been treated like an adult from the moment Yassen took him away from London. Alex suspected it hadn't really sunk in until now, until she was at Malagosto herself, until she saw the training he had been put through and the grown men and women – mostly former military – that struggled as well, until one of her classmates had simply vanished because he didn't live up to standards, and was reminded, vividly and brutally, that this was the life Alex had been dropped into at fourteen. That SCORPIA had been just as willing to dispose of him if he hadn't been worth the investment after all.

"Alex." His name was little more than a soft exhale.

"It – wasn't all bad." And it hadn't been, in some odd way. Maybe Stockholm syndrome. Maybe he had just grown used to it and the classes he did enjoy, the random kind gestures, the moments when he felt like he belonged just seemed that much stronger in contrast.

Jack didn't answer. Just ran a hand through his hair, a year and a half of love and worry and painful separation in that one gesture, the reminder of how easily she could have lost him, and Alex felt the guilt in his chest again.

He would make it worth it. One way or another, he would make it worth it.

* * *

After Johannesburg, another two months of recovery had seemed like forever. Warren and Australia and revenge and everything else had been a hazy sort of future. A constant source of anxiety that he could never entirely forget but – distant. So far away compared to everything else he had to do. He followed his instructions, did his exercises, was as careful as he could be, and generally tried to be the best patient he could, but most of his attention was still on a hundred other things.

Dr Javadi's check-ups were careful and thorough but he had earned enough goodwill that she at least trusted him to follow instructions until proven otherwise. He saw her every two weeks. He did better every time. Had his list of exercises expanded at a steady rate.

Another two months of recovery had seemed like forever -

"You have healed well. It will be a little sooner than expected but I think, Mr Rider, that we can officially clear you for field work again."

\- Until that one morning when it didn't any more.

Alex's hand drifted to his chest. Three months and three weeks. Three months and three weeks ago, he had been dying.

He took a slow breath. Tried to get his heartbeat back under control.

"Thank you, ma'am."

 _Clear you for field work again._

Six words, nothing more.

Just like that, time was up.

* * *

Next: Back to work.


	90. Matryoshka

Alex's first bit of proper field work since Zeljan Kurst had him arrive in Sydney in the last days of May, under the alias of Alec Davenport and there to visit his older half-brother for the summer. Well, technically it was about to be the Australian winter but compared to England or Russia, Alex had a hard time calling the nice, balmy fifteen degree Celsius and sunshine _winter._ He had spent a long time in the Middle East by now but not enough to forget the bone-deep chill of the Russian winter.

It was his first bit of proper field work in four months. It was also weird as hell. Weird and lonely; the strange sense that everything was just slightly off but nothing he could put a finger on. Just the nagging sense of somehow _wrong._

Dr Three and Yassen had kept to the agreement and let Jack stick around while Alex recovered but only just. Alex hadn't even left for the airport before she had been sent off for several weeks with one of SCORPIA's surveillance specialists. Jack Starbright would be incommunicado unless she could work her own way around that restriction. She had not been impressed.

Yassen was off as well, some important operation or another in South America. He left after Alex but his flight, a business jet bound for Bogotá, was airborne before Alex's commercial 747 had even started boarding. A whole plane, all to himself, no security checks needed. Alex was a little envious.

Normally Alex would have paid a little more attention to just what Yassen was up to but for the most part he had been busy with his own mission preparation. He had no second in command to delegate that stuff to. He had people he trusted to do their job but a lot of it still ended up as his headache.

Half of Sagitta had arrived in advance to handle security, which was at least one thing Alex wasn't responsible for himself. Shale and Adams had been on the same flight as him, and Ivey on a flight from New Zealand that had arrived fifteen minutes prior. Trying to arrive without drawing attention really didn't go all that well with security. They had also all needed fake fingerprints and passports and about the same level of precautions as any SCORPIA operative would. Nile's personal combat team was known to the intelligence world. The same went for Sagitta these days, and the set-up had been upgraded accordingly.

Sometimes Alex wondered how Nile got any actual work done. Fantastic disguise skills, probably. Alex had enough trouble and he didn't have Nile's very distinct looks.

It was early morning but still crowded and Alex was greeted in the arrivals hall by a familiar figure, a little less tanned than the last time they had met, but still recognisable.

Samuel had graduated a month after Alex. He went by Domenic Davenport for the assignment but was known to SCORPIA as Hyde – and how very reassuring _that_ was – and Alex was not surprised to find that his classmate had thrived in the past year. He was not one of SCORPIA's future elite assassins but as his file had revealed, that was not why they had recruited him, anyway. He was closer to a traditional intelligence agent, dealing mostly in disguises and information retrieval, though he had been given several more subtle assassinations to handle as well. At twenty-one, he was also young enough to easily pass for Alex's brother.

Hyde had spent six weeks in Australia along with Ussuri on Alex's orders already, getting a closer look at Warren's territory and filling out their lacking intel, and he had done a very thorough job. Alex has seen the regular reports. Any intelligence agency would have snatched him up in a heartbeat except for the small issue of his extensive juvenile criminal record … though honestly, probably even with that. SCORPIA had just found him first or made a better offer. Probably both.

"Welcome to Australia!" Hyde's accent was out in full force. With sun-bleached hair, his obviously fit condition, and an easy smile, Hyde looked like the very stereotype of a young Aussie.

Honestly, he reminded Alex a little of Jerry. A world away from the Samuel he'd had classes with for three months at Malagosto.

"I thought it was supposed to be warm and sunny?"

Hyde shrugged. Domenic dismissed his teenage brother's whining with practised ease. "Eh, it's winter. Still better than England."

Alex shrugged back but didn't answer. Alec Davenport was not a particularly chatty person.

His brother didn't look bothered. "Come on, I've got my ute waiting."

Alex caught a glimpse of Mace on the way out, enough to tell him that however alone he might appear, he was watched even now. A benign sort of watching but still.

The car was an older Holden, probably armoured to some degree, and liberally decorated with an eclectic collection of stickers.

 _DEEP, SENSITIVE, CONSIDERATE AND HORNY_ joined several political bumper stickers, an ad for Jack Daniels, and a couple of pub logos. _I WOULD RATHER PUSH MY HOLDEN THAN DRIVE A FORD_ almost covered _Horn Broken, Watch For Finger_ and _Crime Doesn't Pay … As Much as Politics._

Domenic Davenport had opinions. Especially opinions that would piss off their mostly-absent father.

Alex shut the heavy car door. The engine came to live. The car itself might look a little beaten up but that was purely cosmetic. Just like that, Hyde's personality shifted back to the more familiar person from Malagosto.

He handed Alex an earpiece. Alex slipped it on, the slight weight oddly reassuring. A gun and two knives followed. Alex slipped those into place as well, as ambivalent about them as ever. Part of him didn't feel safe without weapons any more. A much bigger part of him still hated that this was what SCORPIA had turned him into.

"Security is in place and there have been accommodations arranged for the duration of the assignment," Hyde reported. Alex had known it but it was still nice to have confirmed. "Warren's a fucking pain to nail down, though. His file only had the bare bones, I'm pretty sure we've got Yu's people to blame for that, and his security is better than we thought."

Hyde navigated his way out the parking building with practised ease. Alex wondered how much of that familiarity came from a childhood in Sydney. Samuel was close to home. Unnervingly so, if that had been Alex in his place.

"He's been busy recently." All the reports Alex had seen proved as much. Warren's son had been sent away for security reasons after a competitor had tried to kidnap him in December, Warren's wife had followed – Isaac Warren was only a few months older than Alex himself – and Warren had taken the chance to clean house.

Alex spared a thought for Warren's son, who had been enrolled in a private high school in Seattle in the dead of winter. Probably a bit of a shock for someone who had grown up near Sydney.

"Warren's home is locked down tight," Hyde agreed. "A small group of tourists managed to stumble across the place earlier this week, probably some idiots on a do-it-yourself wine tour or whatever stupid tourists with more money than sense do for fun. They nearly got themselves shot. That could've been a hilarious clusterfuck to watch."

Once more Alex was reminded that SCORPIA's sense of humour, for a given definition of the term, really didn't match up with his own.

A black car fell into place behind them. Alex glanced in the rear-view mirror as the headlights flashed once in a brief greeting.

" _Welcome to Australia."_ Aranda's voice broke the silence in his earpiece and Alex felt a bit of warmth uncurl in his chest at another bit of familiarity. He still felt unsettled and couldn't even try to explain why, but it helped with people he knew and trusted around him.

"Thanks."

Hyde glanced over. Turned his focus back to the road and the easy flow of traffic. "You picked a good team," he said. "They've done a solid job. It's pretty weird to be on the other side of security, though."

Alex could imagine. He had never had the chance – thankfully – to slip permanently into that mindset of an assassin but he wouldn't be surprised if Hyde had. Watching Sagitta at work when he would normally have been the one looking for weaknesses … yeah. Alex could imagine that might be weird.

"Yeah," Alex admitted because he could at least understand that feeling in theory. "It never hurts to get the second opinion of a professional assassin, though."

When he looked at it from that angle, it was no wonder the only way Yassen and Dr Three had found to get to Kurst had been through Alex. Maybe Dr Three would have lied about it but Alex trusted that Yassen had seen no other way, and he had fifteen years of experience to back that up. The fact that Kurst had used trained operatives as part of his security detail had worked wonders for his survival.

Silence settled. Outside the window, the world passed slowly by. Like his visit to Las Vegas, it was an odd experience. Crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge felt a little like driving through a postcard, spotting one landmark after another that he had only ever seen on TV. His time spent with Yu had left no time for sightseeing and he had passed through Melbourne that time, not Sydney.

 _Join SCORPIA, see the world, kill new and interesting people._

"… It must be kind of weird to be back in Australia, too," Alex eventually said. It was a little personal but … he wondered. Alex knew that some operatives were kept out of specific countries for whatever reason – his own file specifically included a warning about MI6's habit of nursing overly-long grudges – but Hyde's file said nothing about avoiding Australia. Still, it had to be weird. This was where the man had been born. Where he had grown up, gone to school, and had family and friends and hobbies. Sure, it had stopped eventually, something had made him sign up with SCORPIA, but he'd had a life there once. Been normal. Human.

Hyde was silent for a few seconds but didn't seem offended.

"… A bit," he settled on. Alex doubted he would even have answered if it had been anyone but him who had asked. High-ranking, a former classmate, and young enough to get it in a way that the older operatives probably wouldn't. "I grew up in one of the suburbs. Borderline slum. This is … different."

 _Different_ was a nice way to put it but it summed the whole situation up pretty well. Alex remembered London; Brookland and Chelsea and everything, and he let out a slow breath.

"Yeah," he agreed quietly.

The comfortable silence settled again. Up ahead, the M1 came into view. Too many hours in a plane seat finally caught up with Alex, and he leaned back and let the world pass by, unseen. There would be enough to focus on later. Right now, he planned to take the brief chance to just relax.

* * *

The accommodations for the assignment were a pair of reasonably isolated and rather large rental homes in Newcastle, perfect for the amount of people they would need for the job.

Alex dropped off his luggage. Made an executive decision to grab a quick nap and some food before they went to take a proper look at Warren's place. Alex needed to see it in person, no amount of reports gave the full image, but he wanted food and sleep more. Even first class tickets were still endless hours stuck on a plane, just in nicer seats than usual.

And then there was the faint, nagging sense of something that Alex couldn't place but which was definitely off somehow.

Something was wrong. Something was wrong and he couldn't figure out what.

Alex stared at his phone for a moment, then typed out a text. Yassen would have landed in Botogá by now.

 _We arrived on time._

The phone stayed silent. The response finally came long minutes later.

 _I trust you will handle the situation to acceptable standards._

Distant. Clinical. Professional. Something was wrong. Something was wrong, Alex could feel it, and Yassen knew exactly what it was and wasn't going to tell.

Alex almost threw the phone at the wall. He settled for a pillow and a silent scream of frustration.

 _Well, fuck you, too, Yassen._

* * *

Robert Warren's home was several hours drive north of Sydney and looked like some bored millionaire's hobby vineyard. The house was a slightly odd cross between a Mediterranean villa and what Alex assumed was an Australian edge to it. Wood and stone and an immaculate lawn, surrounded by endless rows of grape vines.

It was the last days of autumn and while Alex hadn't really considered what that meant, he was reminded of it now. The afternoon weather was pleasant but a few trees had started to gain a touch of red and yellow, and the grape vines looked mostly bare.

Their observation spot was almost four miles away, well outside of sniper reach and as close as they could get without the risk of unwanted attention. Those endless rows of bare grape vines left very little cover anywhere closer, probably by design.

The binoculars matched the distance; large, solid things that came with tripods for support. The image was perfectly steady, though, and the things responded smoothly to the slightest touch. They had a set-up for night-time surveillance as well. The entire place had been under round-the-clock surveillance for the past month and a half, and even then Alex knew they didn't know half of it.

Shale was a silent presence by Alex's side but the rest of the team were off with Ussuri to get a good look at the place as well.

Security was discreet but very clearly present. Probably not as obvious to an outsider but definitely there. The fence was tall and elegant but definitely durable, and Alex would bet it was not as harmless as it looked. It was probably electric. It was probably razor-sharp on top as well. They didn't know for sure since Warren had sensibly kept any information on his security tightly under wraps but Alex wouldn't be surprised.

The road leading to the main house was unpaved and meandered its way though the vineyard, probably to slow down anyone who wanted a fast approach. The metal posts that supported the grape vines looked unusually solid and would work wonders for slowing down any vehicle that came from those directions. There were a number of spots around the house that would be perfect for snipers, and the entire place was undoubtedly heavily armoured, walls and windows and all.

"And that's just the visible stuff."

Alex glanced over at Hyde. The man nodded at the grounds. "We think the bottom part of the fence, the concrete bit, hides some kind of modified Claymore set-up. Maybe not along the entire thing but definitely at regular intervals. Remotely detonated, of course. We spotted someone doing maintenance on the fence after their little tourist visit and it looked just a bit too thorough. Probably wanted to make sure no one had messed with something they shouldn't have."

Because those tourists could have been enemy forces and Warren knew that. Still. _Claymores._ Because _why not?_ Alex stopped himself before the hysterical laugh that wanted to escape could actually do that. He wasn't sure what it said about his life these days that he wasn't even surprised.

"Of course," he said instead, a little more sarcastic than he intended.

Hyde shrugged. "He's doing the crime boss version of kicking over an anthill and then stomping on it a few times for good measure. Claymores sound sensible when that many people want to kill you."

Point. SCORPIA wasn't the only group who wanted him dead.

Alex watched the fence again. The elegant, curved metal seemed a lot more sinister all of a sudden.

He sighed. "Right. Talk us through security."

Because it was one thing to read it in a file and something else to have it explained in person while he could actually watch the place.

Hyde nodded and switched the topic easily. "The road first, then. The whole thing is unpaved but relatively new -"

Alex would spent the rest of the afternoon in front of a solid pair of binoculars, watching Robert Warren's deceptively harmless-looking vineyard.

* * *

"Warren's been vicious with the opposition," Marcus summed up the situation that evening. "He hasn't expanded much but he's mowed down anyone who's even looked at him wrong, and everyone else is smart enough not to give him a reason to go after them, too."

It was just the eight of them in the house. The entire place had been checked for surveillance, and they had all spent a while making sure they felt decently secure, but it was well into the evening now, Hyde had left, and it was just the eight of them. Like a particularly bad-tempered mother duck, Marcus wanted his full set of grown up, mercenary ducklings around at least occasionally. Just to make sure they were all still there.

There was no Dr Three. No Malagosto students. No staff. No operatives. No other combat teams. Just Alex and Sagitta. It felt like the first real breath of fresh air in months.

"He's not stupid," Alex said. "If his business grows too big, it'll draw attention. He's the biggest shark around but the pond is small enough that ASIS doesn't care and the police has other things to worry about. If he makes sure everyone else have a healthy fear for their lives around him, it's a nice, cushy position."

Much like Yu had done on a much larger scale. Warren's business was just the sort of network SCORPIA needed in Australia. Alex knew Dr Three's _helpful suggestion_ for the order it was.

Had Dr Three actually been behind that assassination attempt in some convoluted attempt at … something, some lesson or another, or had he just taken advantage of it? Alex still didn't know and he couldn't rule out either option. It was awfully convenient, at least. Warren was just the scapegoat, Alex was sure of it, which meant someone else pulled the strings. Whoever it was, that assassination attempt had forced Alex to deal with a lot of things he hadn't wanted to. Torture, for one. The bloody, violent statement they would need to leave in retribution, too. Just the sort of thing the doctor would delight in. And if they could regain some of SCORPIA's influence in Australia while they were at it …

Alex leaned towards the latter option, that Dr Three had just taken advantage of it and used the chance to fan the flames of Alex's paranoia, but he didn't know and Yassen's warnings didn't help. Those warnings were just as valid when it was 'just' a matter of the doctor playing his usual games.

Alex Rider really hated politics.

"Fucking hate a smart target." Marcus muttered and glared at the partial blueprint of the vineyard like it had personally offended him. Alex doubted he was supposed to have heard it and politely didn't comment, just glanced down at the massive pile of paper in his own lap.

A month and a half of reconnaissance. Tons of reports on everything that might be even remotely useful. Hyde and Ussuri had been busy.

Blueprints, profiles, old records, homes, connections, bank statements. There was a list of potential sources of information, split into different sections. The largest group was the ones Warren wouldn't get suspicious about if a few ended up missing or dead. They wouldn't be the most informative ones, either, but they were the least risky as well. The shorter section was the more useful ones. Close enough to Warren to know some very useful intel but also the sort of people where their death would probably warn the man about potential trouble. They would need to target those as late as possible. Late enough that it wouldn't matter.

It reminded Alex a little of Miami and Ramos except it was him in charge now and not Yassen. His operation, his responsibility, his decisions. His fault if they screwed up, his fault if someone got killed, his fault if he chose wrong. It felt heavy in a way his assignments never had before. Not just the fear and anxiety, but the weight of responsibility and a hundred things he had to keep in mind. He was _sixteen_. He should be in school, studying for tests, not -

\- _Tests_.

It felt like a test.

The thought hit with the force of a sledgehammer, a dozen little oddities clicking into place. Yassen, who had other responsibilities, who trusted Alex to do his job, but who had still been a weird mix of concerned and distant – lots of warnings but Alex's responsibility in the end, Alex's revenge to take, part of Alex's education – and the assassination attempt that just felt somehow _off_ and -

It felt like a test.

 _Assume everything is a test. Consider it an educational experience._ Yassen had even _told_ him as much, the answer had been _right there -_

Alex took a deep breath. Gripped the armrest with enough force that his fingers hurt.

 _It was a test._

Those would-be assassins had their intel from somewhere and there were very few people they could have had it from. Yassen wouldn't have done it, there had been a real risk involved in that assassination attempt; Alex could have been killed and Yassen wouldn't have risked that for nothing or without Alex's knowledge, he would bet his life on it, but Dr Three -

\- Dr Three, who turned everything into a test, who would push and poke and pick Alex's mind apart until he knew absolutely everything, Dr Three, who would accept nothing less than perfection and held Alex to impossible standards -

\- Dr Three would do it.

It could have been random opportunity, taking advantage of an attack planned by someone else but Alex doubted it. It was too neat, too convenient. An assassination attempt just incompetent enough not to pose a really serious risk, something that could be used as an excuse to force him to get his hands dirty and embrace the bloodier side of things, blamed on someone whose criminal network would do just _nicely_ to help make up for what SCORPIA had lost with Yu's snakehead, Yassen's warnings and Dr Three's less-than-subtle jabs, the very deliberate way he seemed to have been isolated; no contact with Yassen or Dr Three or even Jack, and with only people around him to rely on that he had chosen himself …

Motives within motives within motives. Maybe it wasn't a graduation assignment like Nice but it was close enough and likely just as lethal if he failed.

Alex doubted Yassen had known in advance, he would never have allowed it, but now that it was done, he would not be above taking advantage of it. Any issue between Yassen and Dr Three would have been settled between the two of them. Alex would never have known.

 _It was a test._

"Boss?" Adams, pen in hand as he scribbled a note on one of the plans. The rest of Sagitta watched, too, Marcus' sharp attention focused on him.

For a moment, Alex's mind was blank. He could focus on nothing, couldn't make a single decision, could only let his mind scramble to do something as he just stared.

Things came into focus again. His thoughts ground back into motion, slow and sluggish, then faster.

He could lie. Did they need to know? Did he want to tell them? Admit what sort of politics they had been tangled up in the moment he looked at their files among a dozen others and went _yes, them_?

… Did he have a choice? They deserved to know. In their place, Alex would want to know it, too.

In that moment, Alex understood just as well that he was also about to make his first decision as Yassen's successor on the board. Not his second in command, not his apprentice, but as the future head of SCORPIA.

He could lie. It wouldn't matter to their job, they would have the same responsibilities no matter what. Or he could be honest and run the risk that was putting that kind of knowledge in their hands. If the mission went wrong, Alex would be responsible. If someone had enough of a reason to want to see him fail and they knew how much depended on that test … it was a lot of power. A lot of trust.

He didn't trust Hyde. He didn't trust Crux. He didn't trust Ussuri. He didn't trust a lot of people these days.

What kind of foundation did he want to build his future career in SCORPIA on?

 _\- a banker, it pays well but comes with all sorts of boring business travels and Alex needs a caretaker -_

 _\- an accident, Ms Starbright, he wasn't wearing his seat belt, dreadful story -_

 _\- just a vacation, Alex, nothing more, you'll be perfectly safe -_

Alex made his decision.

"It's a test." There was no way to sugar-coat it and it wouldn't help a thing to try. "I can't prove it but – it's a test. Everything is too convenient for it to be anything else. Dr Three arranged for it. I didn't realise it until now but Yassen all but confirmed it earlier. It's a test."

Alex had picked the people for the assignment; Yassen hadn't even checked them afterwards to Alex's knowledge. He had picked the people, he made the decisions, he had the mission objective but everything else was up to him.

If the mission failed, it was down to Alex's decisions. If it succeeded, he supposed he had gained Dr Three's approval, at least for a while.

Aranda connected the dots before Marcus could. "The assassination attempt?"

If Alex was right, if this was a test -

"Almost certainly Dr Three," he admitted. "They were just inexperienced enough that it would probably have failed against decently prepared security. Enough to rattle us. Enough to make it look real. Not enough to kill us."

 _Probably._ That word still hung heavily in the air and they all knew it.

Did Marcus regret getting tangled up with Alex's life? Did the rest of the team? They hadn't had much of a choice but Alex still wondered now.

The room was silent as the reality of the situation seemed to sink in. Alex was favoured, Alex was Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice and second in command, Alex was being moved into position for more responsibility … and Dr Three had still ordered a hit on him _as a test._ An incompetent hit, maybe, but still potentially lethal. Alex vividly remembered that explosion and the bullets against thick glass. He was sure Shale and Ivey did, too. They were alive due to a car with the heaviest armour that had been readily available. Had Dr Three known? Had he cared?

 _Probably,_ Alex knew, and _probably not,_ in that order.

The pen in Marcus' hand snapped with a sharp crack. He threw it towards the trash can before the ink could stain too much. "Fucking _hell._ "

Which, yeah, was pretty much Alex's opinion, too. Even if Marcus hadn't seen an attack on Alex as some sort of personal insult – and Alex suspected he did now that his team was responsible for security – he had still come close to losing two men in that attack. Because of politics.

" _Fucking hell,"_ Marcus repeated, low and vicious.

No one seemed willing to argue with that. Marcus glared at the blueprints though Alex doubted he actually saw them. Muttered something to himself, too low for anyone else to hear.

It was Adams who finally worked up the nerve. "Boss?"

 _What do we do?_ He didn't say it out loud. He didn't need to, either. SCORPIA's commanders ran their combat teams like miniature kingdoms if some client or operative didn't need them. Their word was law and there was no solid book of regulations to rein them in. SCORPIA wanted them skilled and efficient. How their commanders managed that was their own decision.

Alex outranked them. Alex could give an order and expect to have it followed. Alex could have them shot for disobedience if he wanted, though Yassen would undoubtedly demand a good explanation for that.

Alex was still as silent as anyone else and waited for that answer.

He wanted Sagitta's support. He wanted something more than the old executive board's cold-blooded, back-stabbing politics.

He wanted their trust. He had to show some trust of his own, then.

"… We fucking _pass that stupid test,_ " Marcus bit out, "and then we rub it in his _fucking face._ "

There were about a million reasons why that would be an exceptionally bad idea. Right there and then, Alex didn't care. They could do this. They _would_ do this. Anything else, they could handle later.

Alex had been alone in Nice. This time he didn't have to be.

* * *

EJD: Thank you! _Between the devil and the deep blue sea_ is an English idiom meaning a choice between two bad options, which seemed like an entirely appropriate title for Alex's situation ;) _Between Scylla and Charybdis_ means the same thing and is referenced in two of the chapter titles as well.

A/N: Why yes, yes, Warren's home is in fact in Hunter Valley, NSW. I couldn't resist.

Next: Getting by with a little help from his friends.


	91. With a Little Help from My Friends

Alex deliberately waited until later to contact Yassen. He grabbed a snack. Read a report. Brushed his teeth. Let the immediate anger settle. Only then, curled up on his bed and surrounded by mockingly stylish posters for Australian tourist attractions, did he bring out his phone.

 _Dr Three tried to have me killed as a TEST?_

Waiting had helped. There wasn't a single curse word in the message, even if Alex really wanted to add a few.

The response came almost instantly. What time was it in Bogotá, anyway? Morning-ish? Probably. Not that Alex cared. If it had been in the middle of the night, Yassen had damn well deserved that one, too. It wasn't like the man actually slept much, anyway.

 _He once dissected an operative with kitchen cutlery for disturbing his dinner due to substandard table manners. He did not try to have you killed. He expected you to survive and considered the risk that you would not to be negligible._

Because wasting valuable SCORPIA resources was apparently only a crime when it wasn't the executive board doing it. Alex wanted to throw up. He also didn't miss the fact that Yassen had obviously discussed the issue with the doctor because he sounded too sure for anything else. The fact that Alex had worked it out apparently meant that Yassen was willing to actually talk again, which was _so_ very useful now and not, say, two months ago.

 _Negligible._ Alex didn't bother with a question mark and he hit 'send' with maybe a little more force than strictly necessary.

 _There was always the risk that those assassins would prove more competent than expected, or your security less capable than desired._

The nausea still lingered, the memories of Johannesburg and the explosion and the people who had been killed, burned-out cars and bullets, and it had all been a _test._

 _Why?_

 _I think you know the answer to that._

Because Dr Three had doubts about Alex. Because he wanted to see how Alex would cope with the sort of assassination attempt that had been unnervingly common among the old executive board. Everything else was a bonus; Warren and the torture and Dr Three's sadistic games and all. When it all came down to it, Dr Three had doubts about Alex and wanted those settled before he invested any more time and effort into training him.

Alex stared at the phone. Let the seconds tick by as he wondered just what to say to that. A minute passed. Two. Yassen didn't comment.

In any other situation, he was sure Yassen would have killed the doctor for being a threat to them. He had certainly had no qualms about targeting Yu. But Dr Three was different. Deadly in a way the rest of the board hadn't been able to match, or maybe just skilled enough that he had managed to convince everyone, even his colleagues, that he was harmless unless provoked. Well, harmless for a founding member of SCORPIA, anyway. They had started off on the wrong foot when it came to the doctor, him and Yassen both, and now they were still scrambling to play catch-up.

He wondered what sort of insurances the rest of the board had set up. Not that it had mattered much in the end but Alex was sure there had been something or there would have been a lot more assassinations among them. There had been attempted coups and assassinations later on, sure, but for a long time things had been stable. Maybe a combination of usefulness, skills, and contingency plans … and the fact that they had been busy building up the organisation. It was only later it had gone really wrong.

Duval had relied on anonymity and being too valuable to target because of his network. Kurst had relied on brute strength and violence. Yu had favoured fear, much like Dr Three did.

What would Alex himself have to rely on? Anonymity was out. That left some uncomfortable alternatives behind.

He still stared at the phone. Still wasn't sure what to say.

A _test._ It would be maybe another decade before Alex was ready to take over. Even if Dr Three retired before that, as he likely would … that could be years down the line. Plenty of time for a lot more _tests_ like that.

What was he supposed to do now? 'Pass the test' would be Yassen's answer, just like Marcus had decided.

Alex wasn't sure what to say that he hadn't already said too many times. _I don't like this_ had become a painfully familiar refrain.

 _Don't get malaria_ , he finally wrote and put a dozen meanings into the comment that he couldn't even begin to put into actual words.

 _Stay out of trouble,_ Yassen wrote back, and Alex knew he understood.

* * *

Alex had a list of mission objectives. On their own, they weren't terribly complicated. Get intel. Dispose of Warren. Take over. Make a statement clear enough to ensure no one would get any unfortunate ideas that SCORPIA had somehow become less deadly to cross.

Except for the last one, it was nothing Alex hadn't done before. Miami and Ramos had been much the same. This time, however, Alex didn't have Yassen to run the operation. All he'd had to think about in Miami had been his own orders. This was different. Even with lots of help.

The 'make a statement' part was something Alex firmly ignored for now.

Sagitta had done sort of similar missions before. Not too many, since most of their jobs had been hunter-killer missions, but some. Capture, interrogate, kill. Just a little more complicated. It didn't mean that they had to like it.

"It would be easier if we could just kill him."

It wasn't the first time Alex had heard that comment from Marcus. He doubted it would be the last, either. It was bright and early, and the table was covered by a number of maps and reports. Breakfast was mostly done, only coffee mugs and stray bits of toasts still lingered, and they had turned their full attention to the job at hand.

"Yeah," Alex admitted.

It would be. He almost wanted to. Warren wasn't getting out alive no matter what, not now that he had drawn SCORPIA's attention. He was a scapegoat, too. Alex didn't need to interrogate him to know that, or to figure out who was ultimately behind it.

He did, however, need the rest of the information Warren carried around. SCORPIA wanted Warren's network to replace what they had lost with Yu. If Alex failed to secure that, he would fail his test.

Alex did not want to be the one to explain to Yassen or Dr Three that he had screwed up enough to possibly cost SCORPIA a ready-made criminal network they could take over in Australia.

Alex paused. Considered, really considered where his thoughts had just drifted.

… When did 'just kill him' become the acceptable default solution? Alex thought back but couldn't actually remember. It hadn't been in Singapore. It hadn't been in Miami. It hadn't even been on Santa Catarina.

He felt cotton in his mouth and a surge of nausea, and suddenly his breakfast felt like a brick in his stomach.

Alex stood up, sudden enough to draw Marcus' attention. Sharp eyes focused on him. Alex shook his head. Forced himself to look casual.

"I just need some fresh air. Clear my head. I think we could all use a break. Maybe it'll make more sense afterwards."

He managed to make it sound almost normal. Marcus still watched him as he left the room, the attention like a sharp itch between Alex's shoulder blades. Right where his first tracker had once been. _That_ was a reminder he could live without as well.

The house had a large garden, neatly kept – probably by a gardener, Alex imagined that with the sort of rent someone probably charged for that place, they could afford it. It was also about the last thing he wanted.

Right there and then, he missed Yassen's safe-house in Russia with an almost physical pain. It had been long days, yes, cold when autumn and winter had hit, hard work and even harder expectations but it had also been nice in a way he couldn't really describe. The forest had been endless and still, the closest human habitation miles away, and the only company had been Yassen. If Alex had wanted peace and quiet, it was right there. If he had wanted to break down, there had been only Yassen to see.

Carved stone railing lined the terrace that overlooked the place, designed to match the patterned tiles and probably ridiculously expensive. Alex crossed the terrace. Took a deep breath of cool morning air. It was still early enough that the place was cast in shadow and the stone railing beneath his fingers was cold and damp with dew. It would be warmer soon enough. Right now he appreciated the slight chill.

Another breath. Let the cold seep into his fingers and focused on that instead. Slow. Steady.

When had killing become the default option? He knew he wouldn't be as casual about it when he actually had a gun in his hand but the thought had been there, clear and unwanted.

 _Dr Three._ That thought came clear and unwanted, too.

Dr Three. He was almost sure of it. Yassen hadn't managed, and maybe he hadn't genuinely tried, either, but Dr Three had delighted in showing Alex just how many fates worse than death their world held. One horror after another until a simple bullet sounded like a downright mercy when he knew the alternatives.

Alex still couldn't pinpoint the moment and he doubted there really was one, either. Just … one sliver of morals after the other gone, so slight he never even noticed. Even murder could be made to sound like a reasonable option after half a year in Dr Three's company.

Footsteps against stone behind him, barely a whisper of sound. Alex recognised them by now and didn't turn as Shale reached him. Alex wondered if Marcus had sent him.

Part of the garden was already bathed in sunlight, bright drops of dew in the grass and on the elaborately shaped bushes. It looked like the sort of place that was for decorative purposes only. No kids allowed. No toys. No sunbathing. No loose dogs. No cats. No walking around barefoot. _Definitely_ no barbecues. Jack would have hated it.

 _Jack._

He missed her again, bright and fiercely. He didn't even know where she was and when he had looked her up, he had been met by the depressingly familiar _classified_ tag, probably courtesy of Yassen _._ They hadn't had much time together at Malagosto, both kept ridiculously busy, but she had been there. He had spotted her in class, sat with her at dinner sometimes, spent evenings and nights in her room doing homework and assignments together.

"All right?" Shale's voice was a murmur in the morning air.

Alex felt like they'd had that conversation before. He wondered if Sagitta ever got annoyed that they had to coddle him. Wondered, too, when exactly Shale had become one of the few people Alex was actually willing to admit to that _no, he wasn't okay_ but realised a moment later that he already knew: When the man had taken one look at Alex in France and seen not a trained assassin but a fifteen-year-old boy and killed Duval so Alex wouldn't have to. And what kind of world did he live in where that was one of the kindest things someone had done for him since – since Ian was murdered?

SCORPIA's world, that was where.

"… No," Alex finally admitted.

He felt lost. He felt lonely. He felt isolated, with Jack who-knew-where and Yassen across the world and clear on the fact that this was Alex's job and Alex's test, and some small, neglected part of him wanted to sit down and just cry.

There wasn't much Shale or anyone else could do to help. He didn't even try to pretend otherwise.

"Starbright is stubborn," Shale said. "She'll find a way to get in touch."

Which, Alex supposed, was Shale's way of admitting that he couldn't do much about it, that this was Jack's area more than anything, but he would do what he could, even if that was just a bit of reassurance.

Alex liked to believe that Shale was right but he had no idea. If this was a test, Yassen and Dr Three might very well have decided to keep Jack away from him completely for the duration of it. He didn't know. He wouldn't find out until she either got in touch or he saw her again afterwards. Of course, they would never admit to that even if that was the case. They would make it Jack's own fault for not being able to find a way around her restrictions.

Even if she called, what was he supposed to say?

 _Hi, Jack, I realised today that killing people is apparently a default solution to me now. How are you?_

No. He wasn't going to make her deal with that. She had enough to handle without adding that to the list.

Alex's silence was probably a little too telling because Shale reached out and ruffled his hair.

"You're a good kid," he said. "Sure, it's a bit of a shitty situation but we've handled worse. We've got a good team, solid backup, and time to get it right. We'll manage."

Except that Alex had apparently learned to see killing people as a convenient solution, but he didn't say that out loud.

Shale was a sniper. How many had he killed? How long had it taken before he had stopped caring? Had it been different since he had started his career in the military and not as an assassin like Alex?

Alex didn't ask. He had come to know the man well enough to suspect that Shale might never have minded at all. Not at eighteen or nineteen or twenty or whenever he had first been given a sniper rifle, and certainly not at twenty-eight and on SCORPIA's payroll.

"Yeah," Alex agreed though he did it mostly to say _something._

Alex had a team he trusted, people who had seen him in the aftermath of Santa Catarina and Rensburg's estate in the Congo and all the other times he had been Alex and not Orion, but it didn't change the fact that they were trained soldiers, professional mercenaries, and cold-blooded killers. Shale would listen if Alex talked but Alex doubted he would understand.

"Just … give me five minutes," he continued. "I just needed the break."

Shale nodded and went back inside with silent footsteps. He didn't argue. Alex took a deep breath. The stone under his hands was still cold. The sun had inched a little closer. He would just have to cope. Just like with everything else. He had coped in Nice and Singapore and a dozen other places. Eventually it would get easier. Just like everything else.

That thought was nowhere near as reassuring as he had hoped.

* * *

The most important thing they needed was intel. Between Hyde, Ussuri, and the additional two combat teams Alex had sent as assistance they had a lot but not nearly enough.

Like with Ramos in Miami, SCORPIA wanted Warren's network intact. Or as much as possible, at least. Alex had never considered just how much work had gone into taking over Ramos' drug operation. It hadn't been his problem. His job had been to get inside, to get the intel needed to take down the place and carry the implant that would gain them access to at least some of the intel in the manor, but that was it. It had been more than enough, too, but between his undercover assignment and the brutal experience of the attack – the first one he had really participated in – he hadn't considered just how much Yassen had handled beyond that. Yassen had taken out Ramos' two most influential underlings, had ensured they had people in place to get the intel necessary to take over, had brought in operatives to take over the entire drug business, and done it well enough that a year later, SCORPIA's new business hadn't just survived but thrived.

Alex would need to manage the same. Ramos and Miami had been Yassen's test by the executive board, the moment they decided if he would be a potential worthwhile board member. Warren would be Alex's.

It was overwhelming when he sat down and really thought about it, so he tried not to. Just … one step at a time. Delegate.

Yassen had brought in a pair of operatives, a husband-and-wife team to run the business and handle the practical issues that came with a drug operation of that size. Alex didn't know how a marriage like that could possibly work and certainly wasn't about to think too much about it, but he could see the point. Nile was permanently stationed in Manila to handle SCORPIA's business there, Crux had been responsible for several operations in Singapore and the surrounding areas … Alex suspected he would need to have some damn good reasons not to follow precedent for that sort of thing.

Of course, that left the question of what operative to use. The answer to that was fairly obvious. SCORPIA didn't care about nepotism and Alex preferred people he knew. That Hyde was twenty-one and had barely more than a year of experience, well, Alex was sixteen. If Hyde could handle the job, it would come with a hefty raise and increased rank and responsibility. If he couldn't, that would be Alex's headache, too, but he suspected Hyde would work hard to live up to that opportunity. Failure was not treated lightly, after all … and good opportunities came with loyalty. Like with Sagitta. Alex had been the one to introduce them to the more profitable operations and they remembered that. Hyde would do the same.

He didn't ask Yassen. He doubted he would get a useful answer, anyway. This was Alex's test, Alex's decisions, and Alex's responsibility, and Alex had made his choice.

"Do you want Australia?" He didn't bother to be subtle about it, just flat-out asked during one of those few moments when there was no one else around. It wasn't the sort of question he wanted out there in public. If Hyde wanted to turn it down, that was his business and his alone.

Hyde looked up from a report. Dark eyes turned thoughtful. Calculating. "Warren's network?"

"Network, business, all of it. You'll get the full responsibility and a percentage of the profits. SCORPIA won't care how you run it, just do it successfully." Alex hesitated. "You can refuse. It's not an order. I would just prefer someone I know, someone I can work with, and someone I won't have to pick based on a file alone. You're more intelligence agent than assassin and we need that to run a network like Warren's. You've grown up here, you've got nothing in your file that says to keep you out of Australia, and we went through Malagosto together."

He liked to think that counted for something. That it gave him at least some idea of what Hyde was like under pressure. They had worked well together at the school and while Hyde was closer to the age most people would expect an operative to be, Alex didn't doubt he had still heard comments about his youth.

Hyde glanced down at the report again. The pen in his hand twitched slightly, a restless tap that Alex doubted he was even aware of. Then again, he had gone through Malagosto as well. It could just be part of a carefully crafted cover.

"That's a lot of responsibility. A lot of risk."

"It is." The average operative lived a reasonably safe existence mostly well away from the executive board. The bad ones usually didn't survive long but Alex had seen the numbers. A surprising number of SCORPIA's mid-range assassins lived long enough to retire and were smart enough to do just that when they could. Warren's network, however … that was _useful._ If Hyde was put in charge of it, he would eventually have to deal with Yassen and Dr Three. If he really messed up, he would have to answer to them as well.

Was the potential reward worth it? Alex could make it an order. He didn't want to. Whoever he put in charge, he wanted them to have agreed to it because they wanted to, not because he didn't give them a choice.

He wanted that loyalty. It was cold-blooded and cynical and he hated himself for it, but that was how SCORPIA _worked._ Julia Rothman had hand-picked Nile to encourage that loyalty and obedience. Kurst had done the same with his security detail; brutally competent and almost fanatically devoted. Alex wanted that loyalty. Not to SCORPIA or the executive board but to _him._ Even if it was just because he was the first person to have offered Hyde a valuable opportunity and trusted him to do it right.

"Ussuri has done a good job so far," Hyde said, just a little cautious.

That sounded like a cautious yes to Alex.

"Keep them, then. You'll need them. Backup, firepower, security, sooner or later you'll need them." Yassen had claimed Danube, not Ussuri. If he wanted both teams, he could have been faster. Ussuri wasn't exactly safe around civilians according to their file but they had managed just fine for the past few weeks. If Hyde wanted someone he knew he could work with, Alex wasn't going to refuse that. It wasn't like a name like _Hyde_ offered a lot of confidence that he was safe around civilians, either.

Hyde was silent. The seconds stretched on. Alex found it vaguely reassuring that Hyde treated the question seriously and didn't just agree because he had no other option.

"Yes," he finally said. "If you can get me a list of what the board expects of me, I'll agree. Unless there's something on that list I know I can't handle, anyway."

"Deal." Alex said and felt the weight on his shoulders ease just a little.

Hyde was young. Nile had been even younger when Julia Rothman had claimed him as her second in command and he had managed beyond every expectation. It was still a bit of a risk but one Alex was willing to take.

* * *

With a hundred different things to keep track of, Alex's days vanished in a haze of work, planning, and general exhaustion. It was close to midnight a week into his stay when Alex's phone buzzed and almost managed to vibrate its way off the bedside table by the time he fumbled his way to it. It had been a long day, he was tired, and all he wanted to do was sleep.

Any tiredness vanished the moment he actually got a look at his phone.

 _Jack._

He recognised the number instantly from the phone that Yassen had given her. It buzzed several more times in a row before he could even open the message; an oversized, impatient mosquito.

 _Alexx_

 _So I got my phone back_

 _I had to break into an office and steal it_

 _And take it apart to make sure it wasn't rigged or something_

 _And there was a gold star sticker inside like I was a toddler that just managed to go potty_

 _Seriously_

 _A terrorist organisation gave me a gold star sticker_

 _I think it was a bug anyway so I left it in the candy jar_

Alex laughed and almost startled himself with the sound. It had only been a week but felt like so much longer. He had missed her, and he couldn't remember the last time he had laughed like that. He had been worried he would have no chance to talk to her for weeks or more. This was -

 _Thank you,_ he thought to no one in particular or the world in general, one small blessing to balance out a bit of everything else.

 _Terrorist scientists have candy jars?_

Jack's response came fast.

 _Yes, and someone keeps eating all the blue m &ms. Seriously. All of them. Even those crumbled ones from the bottom of the bag_

No serious topics. Nothing incriminating, not to SCORPIA, at least. It was an unspoken agreement. Jack probably needed the break as much as Alex did.

 _Maybe it's part of a cunning plan?_

 _Maybe it's a sign of bad taste. Everyone knows red tastes better_

Alex's lips twitched. _Blue,_ he wrote back.

 _Red_

 _Blue_

 _Red_

 _Yellow_

The response took a little longer this time.

 _You don't just admit something like that without warning, you deviant,_ Jack wrote back. _I need a talk with Marcus, he's been a terrible influence on you_

 _Marcus hates m &ms, he always trades them if he gets them in MREs._

 _See? Terrible influence. Go to sleep, Alex_

She knew he was in Australia, she had known that when he left, but where was she even at herself? Alex still didn't know. It could be morning to her. It could be evening. He had no idea.

 _Take care. Don't let the terrorist scientists bite._

 _I'll punch them if they try. xoxo_

Alex smiled. She had a point, though. He turned the phone off and actually went to bed. It wasn't a lot of sleep but for once he didn't dream. That was good enough for him.

* * *

Flaming eyeball: I couldn't PM you so here it is instead: I'm actually neither (I'm Danish, and we normally use the phrase 'to choose between the plague and cholera') but my better half is American and familiar with the expression. A guest reviewer in the review section also has some examples and the US vs. UK thing :)

Next: Yassen made it look so easy in Miami. Alex thinks it's false advertising.


	92. Management

As June carried on, Alex tried to remember just what Yassen had done in Miami. It was a lot harder than expected. Alex had been busy with his undercover assignment and he had still been desperately trying to adapt to the world he had been dropped into. Nice. Singapore. And then Miami and undercover as a child assassin with the sort of irony only SCORPIA could appreciate.

Yassen had done a lot of things behind the scenes in Miami but Alex had frankly been too busy and exhausted to care. He kind of regretted that now.

At least Sagitta could fill in some of the blanks. Not all of them, not by a long shot, but maybe enough to make it a little easier to handle.

"You need to know which parts of his network that can be salvaged and which need to be cut," Adams told him, blunt and practical as always. Marcus knew orders and leadership and responsibility but Adams made things happen. Someone had to master logistics, especially when a number of their missions had found them on their own for weeks on end, and Marcus was not that person. "You can leave the actual care and maintenance to Hyde or whoever when it's settled, but you need to know what parts are too dangerous to leave around."

Yassen and Dr Three wanted a functional, intact network for intelligence purposes but they had to know it would be impossible to fulfil that to the letter. Right? Right. Yassen had been responsible for Miami; he knew that some underlings were too loyal or too untrustworthy to keep.

Alex almost texted Yassen just to make sure but stopped himself at the last second. His test. His decisions. Yassen might answer but Alex was sure it wouldn't be in any useful way, and he was just as sure it would count against him somehow. It wasn't the sort of test Yassen would normally favour but it was right up Dr Three's alley. Drop him in deep water to sink or swim, and if he managed to worry himself sick in the process, that was just all the more material for the doctor to work with. It wasn't Yassen's style, but he also wasn't the sort of person to waste an opportunity, and they needed Dr Three's approval. He was still too dangerous to move against.

That network, then. He could make Hyde do it. It was tempting but he knew just as well that it wouldn't work. Alex had some degree of experience because of Miami. Hyde didn't. He was learning on the job just as much as Alex had a year ago. Between Alex and Sagitta, they had a chance to get it right and they worked together well enough that they might be able to pull it off. Hyde had Ussuri – not officially yet, but Alex expected to have them permanently assigned to Australia within the month – but they were still figuring things out. Ussuri wasn't used to intelligence assignments. Sagitta had already had some small degree of experience when Alex had picked them, and the rest … they had learned that on the job.

They needed intel. They needed to be able to strike the second Warren had been removed, before anyone else could act. They needed … they needed a lot of things to happen almost simultaneously, and Alex wouldn't be able to be there for all of it. Yassen had trusted him in Miami to handle Ramos while he handed the rest. Alex would need to do the same now.

Alex eventually left the intel network in commander Donovan's hands. He was in charge of Taurus, one of the two teams that Alex had pulled in to help with the operation. They had both been given call signs to match Orion. Ussuri still used the designation that Yassen had given them though if Hyde laid claim to them, that might eventually change.

Hyde would be with Taurus and Ussuri but the intel they had to act on would come from Alex and Sagitta. Clear instructions that would have to be followed to the letter. Act too soon, before Alex and Sagitta had targeted Warren, and they might alert him that something was wrong. Act too late and they could lose track of several key parts of that network.

Alex had to trust they would get it right with only a file and a few weeks of experience with them to go by. It was not a nice place to be in.

He wondered if it had been any easier for Yassen in Miami. Yassen had gambled the success of the entire operation on a fifteen-year-old boy and an untested combat team. Looking back now that he was in Yassen's position himself, Alex wondered how he had been willing to risk that in the first place. Alex only had Yassen and Dr Three to disappoint. Yassen would have faced the full executive board for a failure of that size.

Yassen had handled the plans but the final responsibility had been Alex's. Alex's and Sagitta's and Danube's.

Alex looked at his own plans now and couldn't imagine what it had taken to know what was at stake, the price of failure, and still leave the most vital part of the operation in someone else's hand. Even someone that Yassen had personally trained.

Maybe Yassen had trusted Alex's training. Maybe he just hadn't had a choice. Either way, Alex doubted he could have done the same.

* * *

 _What are the requirements for whoever runs the Australian operation in the future?_ This time and a lot less angry, Alex had checked the time difference before he contacted Yassen. Not surprising, the response came within a few minutes. It was Alex's operation but he still suspected Yassen kept a close eye on things.

 _A useful, expanding intelligence network to assist SCORPIA operations in the area and an acceptable profit given the nature of the business. As I expect you to have your former classmate in mind, he will be allowed a twelve month grace period on account of his inexperience before we expect results. Nile was given six._

A year to take over, get everything running right, and then deliver what Yassen and Dr Three expected – intel and profits. It sounded simple but Alex knew it would be everything but. He couldn't imagine how Nile could possibly manage something similar in half that time.

It wasn't his decision, though. It would be Hyde's responsibility and Hyde's choice in the end.

Something did annoy Alex, though. Just a little.

 _I could have someone else in mind,_ Alex wrote back, just because he could. He didn't know why he was surprised. Yassen was a mind reader.

 _Twelve months,_ Yassen repeated. _You could have chosen worse._

Alex supposed that was as close to approval as it got.

* * *

Alex had written those requirements down properly before he saw Hyde again. The man stared at the paper for long seconds, and Alex was sure he was carefully considering the pros and cons. A lot of potential influence and money. A huge promotion. A huge risk to run as well, especially for someone who was only a year past graduation.

Finally Hyde nodded once, slowly, like the weight had already settled on him. "… All right," he said. "I'm in."

* * *

Alex and Jack stayed in touch. Not too much – they were both busy and it was a delicate balance between the sort of company Alex desperately needed and giving Dr Three even more ammunition against them – but enough.

 _Seen any drop bears yet?_

It was late evening to Alex. He wondered what time it was for her. He hadn't asked. He wasn't sure she would be allowed to answer, anyway.

 _I think those are called koalas._

Jack's response came almost immediately. Maybe she had a break. Maybe it was almost bedtime. Maybe she was just bored and completely sick of homework. Alex had certainly been there. _Clearly you haven't paid attention in biology. Just wait until one of them attacks you. You'll be sorry then_

He tried to imagine that conversation with Yassen and didn't bother to suppress his smile. _That would be fun to explain. Can I keep it? It followed me home!_

 _Don't koalas sleep all day? Supervillain pets have really gone downhill_

Had he ever actually told her about Sayle's giant man o' war? He couldn't even remember. London and MI6 felt like a lifetime ago. Blunt and Jones wouldn't have told her. He … didn't think he had, either. Maybe one day he would. The man o' war, and Rensburg's hyenas.

 _Don't you dare mock Killer McMurderface,_ he wrote back. _He's doing his best._

 _Killer McMurderface looks like a teddybear_

 _A ferocious teddybear._ Big difference there.

 _Right. Get to bed, Alexx. xoxo_

Bedtime wasn't happening anytime soon but Alex appreciated the thought. He returned to the pile of reports he still had to go through but his mood was a lot better when he did.

* * *

Alex had another problem he had been … well, not happily ignoring but definitely doing his best to pretend wasn't an issue.

Make a statement. Send a message. Prove SCORPIA was no less lethal despite a drastically reduced executive board. It wasn't something he had done before but he had seen plenty of examples, and that was enough to make him want to go right back to ignoring that issue.

Alex was reminded of Nile's patient lessons in the difference between an assassin and a second in command. Of the casual murder of a man as punishment and a reminder to everyone else just what the price of failure was. He could only imagine how Nile would approach a _message_ of the size Alex now faced.

Alex liked Nile. He didn't trust him, no, and knew the man would kill him in a heartbeat if he got the order, but some part of Alex still genuinely liked him. That didn't change the fact that Alex knew just as well that Nile was a cold-blooded psychopath with absolutely nothing in the way of qualms or morals.

Alex couldn't talk to Yassen about it. It was Alex's test, Alex's responsibility, and Yassen … Alex could ask, anyway, but he suspected the answer would be simple.

 _Carry out the assignment to the best of your ability. Make enough of a statement to ensure no one will think SCORPIA weakened._

Because a weakened SCORPIA would make a lot of enemies crawl out of the woodwork and even Alex knew how dangerous that would be. Few had been willing to challenge SCORPIA directly for the past decade or more. If that changed, it wasn't just Alex and Yassen and Dr Three that might become targets. Jack and Sagitta and Tom might, too.

Marcus could have been an option, Alex trusted Sagitta that much, but he also knew Marcus. His first approach to any problem was violence. Blow it up. If that didn't work, use more explosives the second time. Maybe that would be the solution Alex would eventually settle for but he would like to have at least the illusion of decent alternatives. Adams, brutally pragmatic and used to Marcus' whims, wasn't much better.

The solution presented itself when Alex settled down to clean his guns on the terrace – he was _not_ about to risk oil on the expensive-looking carpets, not even in a rental place – and found Shale already there, patiently cleaning every single part of a massive rifle.

Slow. Patient. Meticulous. Alex might even be tempted to say loving, given the fondness Shale treated the rifle with. How heavy was that thing? Thirty pounds? Forty? More? He wouldn't even be surprised. And the size of it … 20mm rounds was Alex's best guess. That had to be anti-material, not anti-personnel. Guaranteed destruction. No wonder Shale loved it.

Alex was pretty sure some of Jack's ex-boyfriends hadn't looked at her with that much longing in their eyes.

"… should I leave you two alone?" Alex asked before he could stop himself.

There was a slight, slight twitch of Shale's lips. He patted the rifle affectionately. "She's very understanding."

Alex settled down. Brought out his own small arsenal and set to work. Had Hyde arranged for that thing? He had arranged for the rest of the weaponry, at least. If he hadn't, Shale had somehow managed to get that thing around customs. Then again, Alex supposed that wouldn't be the first time. Compared to everything else, a bit of smuggling was really in the milder end of things.

Shale returned to the rifle. His fingers moved with the ease of years of experience; the same swift, efficient movements Alex had seen with Yassen as well. Alex himself wasn't quite there yet. He still had some years of practice still to go.

Silence settled. Alex glanced over. Shale was a sniper, Shale had killed, but he had also been one of the few people to treat Alex like the fifteen-year-old he had been in France. All of Sagitta knew he was young and made allowances for that, but Shale was the only one who had actually done something about it.

"You're thinking very loudly," Shale said and Alex realised he had been staring.

He took a breath. Made a decision. "I -"

 _\- Don't know what to do, don't even know where to start, need to talk and won't make Jack listen to that kind of thing and I'm sixteen years old, this is **not my world** -_

"- I'm thinking about the end of the assignment," Alex settled on.

Shale hummed but didn't ask further. If Alex wanted to talk, he wasn't going to stop him. If he didn't, Shale obviously wasn't going to make him, either.

"We need to send a message," Alex eventually continued.

 _We._ That was a lie. _Him._ Alex's test. Alex's decisions. Someone else might help carry it out but the order and final responsibility was his. He was pretty sure that was part of the test, too. He could just … make Sagitta do it, Sagitta or Taurus or Lepus, and stay entirely out of it, but he had the horrible suspicion that if he did, that would count heavily against him.

He wouldn't be able to run SCORPIA without getting blood on his hands. It would be a careful balancing act between avoiding what he could while still accepting that the responsibility was his in the end. His, and no one else's.

Silence. Shale finished with one cloth. Picked up a clean one before he answered.

"What do Mr Gregorovich and Dr Three expect you to do?"

Wasn't that the question? Alex had already considered it. Dr Three was the obvious one except not really. The doctor liked to focus on individuals, not wide scale destruction. What would he want, then? Take Warren apart, leave a gruesome message for everyone, and handle the rest with swift, ruthless efficiency? Or leave the whole place a slaughter, just because he knew Alex would hate every bit of it? Alex had considered it but he still wasn't sure. Maybe that uncertainty was part of the game. Except something about the conclusion just … didn't feel right. He was missing something and he knew it.

What would Yassen expect? Get the job done to acceptable standards and do it right the first time. He was not the type to accept having to make the same point twice. Yassen had no qualms, not a flicker of conscience. He had helped turn Sayle's mad plan from random crazy to lethal reality and never even blinked.

How long would they even have once they struck against Warren? How long could they keep it quiet? Ramos had pretty much had a direct line to the local police. In Miami, they had made sure the only communications that would go through would be their own, but even then they had been on a tight schedule. What did Warren have? That mattered a lot when it came to how undisturbed they would be. Would they have half an hour? An hour? A day? The vineyard was reasonably isolated and the only visitors bar confused tourists were Warren's own people. How long could they keep up the appearance that absolutely nothing was wrong?

Long enough, if he asked Dr Three. Long enough to torture Warren and at least a few of his most important people to death. Long enough to get some useful …

… _intel._

Something clicked, the knowledge of just what Dr Three expected, _wanted,_ if Alex had learned his lessons right.

Intel. Malagosto. _Graff's drug._ Ship Warren to Dr Three, pump him full of the drug, and rip every last useful bit of intel from his mind before it killed him.

Alex could imagine it so vividly he could practically smell the slightly sterile, dry, metallic air of Dr Three's cells, the disinfectant so strong it was almost nauseating, and Alex took a sharp breath and forced the memories aside. That was what Dr Three would want but Dr Three wasn't there, and Dr Three could go _fuck himself,_ too.

Send a message. Take over the network. Those were his orders. Alex could do both just fine without reliving the nightmare that had been Iohannes Graff's little show and tell.

Maybe they wouldn't get everything from Warren, maybe it wouldn't be gruesome enough for the doctor, but then Alex would just deal with that. He could send a message. He didn't think he would be able to send someone off to Dr Three like that, with full knowledge of what would happen, and still look in a mirror afterwards.

Warren was a scapegoat. Warren hadn't tried to kill Alex, or Jack, or Tom, or anyone else Alex cared about. Warren had just been a convenient target that happened to own an intelligence network that SCORPIA needed.

Alex would do his job according to his own conscience. He didn't have much of it left and he knew it, but what he still had _mattered._ Dr Three would just have to be disappointed if he expected Alex to do them to _his_ standards.

What did Yassen and Dr Three expect?

"… It doesn't really matter, does it?" Alex said, just a little spitefully. "They're not here."

Alex's job, Alex's responsibility, Alex's decisions. Alex's problem if Dr Three and Yassen didn't think he had done a good enough job, but Alex still had standards he wasn't willing to abandon and he would just have to deal with the fallout, then.

"As long as you can argue for it," Shale murmured, but Alex thought he saw a flicker of approval. "If you want Warren, his most vulnerable spot is transportation. That's how Mr Gregorovich got Mikato."

Of course, Mikato was dead and at least on paper Alex wanted Warren alive … though the more he thought about it, the less he wanted to follow that part, too.

Warren had Claymores embedded in his fence. _Claymores._ If that was the sort of set-up he had invested in for an initial defence, what was hiding further inside the property? Land mines in the lawn? Automatic targeting systems? Nerve agents?

Alex decided there and then that yes, Dr Three and Yassen could really most sincerely go fuck themselves. He wasn't going to risk Sagitta or any of his other teams to that sort of thing. They would get Warren in his car or they would kill him if that failed. That house was getting razed to the ground from as far away as Alex could possibly arrange for. He wasn't about to let his people within two miles of a potential death trap like that.

Maybe SCORPIA took an extremely casual approach to the lives of their guards and combat teams but Alex wasn't Yassen, he wasn't Dr Three, he wasn't Alan Blunt, and he wasn't about to risk his people in an attack that was very likely to kill them all. And definitely not for Dr Three's sadistic games.

Shale had been Yassen's backup for the Mikato assassination. He had been there with Alex for Duval as well. He had experience with that kind of thing.

 _Delegate._

"I need a plan to get to Warren. Preferably alive, but if that's not possible without too much of a risk, don't bother."

Shale nodded. Put the cloth away and started to put the massive rifle back together. "You'll have it by tomorrow."

* * *

Sometimes Jack messaged him. Sometimes Alex messaged first and hoped it wasn't too awkward of a time for her. This was one of those times.

 _I'm sorry._

It was late evening, so late it was technically well into the night. Jack had messaged him often enough at that time that he was pretty sure it at least wasn't in the middle of the night to her. Besides, he realised a little belatedly, middle of the night when it was already past midnight on the Australian east coast would put her … somewhere in the Pacific? Though he supposed Hawaii or New Zealand was an option. Or the American west coast. So that didn't actually cut down a lot on the options.

Her response came a minute later. _Alex?_

 _Just for all of this,_ Alex wrote back. _I'm sorry._

Night-time and a mind that refused to shut down gave him too much time to consider everything, from the assignment to – everything else.

This time her response was much faster. _Alexx. It wasn't your fault. You okay?_

Warmth unfurled in his chest. There was guilt that he had drawn her into this world as well, bleak and heavy, but the warmth was stronger. Love and Jack and _missed yous_ that he couldn't risk saying out loud too often where someone might hear.

All he'd had for the longest time had been Yassen, and Yassen was … well. Yassen. Maybe Alex still had to be careful or he might make Jack all the more of a target, and he couldn't tell her more than a tiny fraction of everything, but it was Jack and she was there and he had missed her so much.

 _Just tired. There's so much to do and it never ends._

Endless reports in piles on the table, plans to go over, intel, people, _everything_ , and he had no room for mistakes, none at all.

 _Nights suck, don't they?_

Wherever she was, she understood. A part of Alex felt horrible because he was still so transparent. A much larger part just felt grateful someone got it. Nights were too silent. Too lonely. Left too much time to think. He wondered if it was the same for Jack. Probably. The guilt about that settled bleak and vicious, too.

 _Yeah._

 _It wasn't your fault. Go sleep. Tell your brain to shut up. You need it_

 _I'll try,_ Alex wrote back. There was so much he wanted to tell her, so much he couldn't even begin to put it into words. _Thank you_ , he wrote instead.

 _Love you, too,_ Jack replied, and Alex knew she got it.

* * *

Next: Back in action


	93. Ars Bellica, part I

A/N: I planned on one chapter for this. Then the talking started. So have a chapter worth of planning instead of action.

* * *

There was a staggering amount of things to keep track of for the operation. If Alex hadn't already learned to delegate, he knew he would have been forced to now. There was simply too much for one person to be involved in everything. He had to rely on the people around him and trust that he had made the right decisions when he picked them.

Alex still wished he had paid more attention in Miami. SCORPIA had taken over the drug business there, too. Alex had checked, and the operatives Yassen had left in charge had done a profitable job with the business. The file unfortunately didn't give a whole lot of detail on everything that had gone before, which was what Alex really needed. He had been busy with his own undercover mission, and what Yassen had been up to had been pretty far down Alex's list of priorities.

He would just have to learn now and hope everyone around him knew what they were doing – and, thankfully, so far it looked like they did.

Like some twisted version of Santa, Hyde had a list. Long, methodical, and with extensive detail, it had been put together through several months of work between Hyde himself, Alex, Sagitta, SCORPIA's Australian sources, and the combat teams Alex had sent as support.

It was the closest thing to a complete map of the hierarchy of Warren's organisation as anyone could create. The lowest tiers had mostly been ignored unless someone had stood out for whatever reason, but those with any sort of actual influence or importance had a file dedicated to them and those files, in the end, had been combined to form that list.

Everything considered, Alex thought that list almost deserved to be capitalised.

It also made for a brutal, cold-blooded planning session as they finally sat down to decide just what they had to do – Alex and Hyde, along with Marcus and the commanders of the other three combat teams. Alex and Marcus had experience from Miami, Hyde and the others had weeks of reconnaissance to rely on and hopefully, between the six of them, that would be good enough. It had to be done, and it had to be done soon, before Warren's family returned and complicated matters further for Alex, but it still left him with the taste of ashes in his mouth. It was a long list of names and he knew perfectly well that by the end of it, a good percentage of them would be dead.

They started in the most logical place: the very top of the list.

"Warren," Marcus said. "We might be able to get him alive, Shale's cautiously optimistic, but he's got solid security. Unless we find another approach, it'll be down to pure chance."

Alex didn't need to consider that one. "We stick with our current plan. Alive if possible, dead if that's too risky."

He hesitated for a moment. Wondered if he should continue and if they really needed to know. Decided the moment after that in their place, he would at least have liked to get the warning. "Dr Three never said as much but he wants the man alive for interrogation. That's partially a political thing, though, and not something you're going to be held accountable for when it was my decision and you're following my orders."

Well, 'political'. 'Mind games' was more accurate but 'political' sounded better.

Hyde's eyes sharpened and Alex could almost see him try to make the pieces fit together.

"He's a dangerous man to disappoint."

"I'm pretty sure he expects to be disappointed," Alex said bluntly. At the very least, the doctor knew him well enough that he should be. "I'd hate to prove him wrong. My decision, my headache."

Hyde nodded. Slow and reluctant, and Alex wondered if he still had nightmares about resistance to interrogation, too.

"… Warren's lieutenants, then. Burnett – everything we've seen says he's loyal. He started out as muscle for Warren when they ran an extortion racket together when Warren first started out; he went to jail for him for eighteen months and never said a word."

They all knew what the verdict would be. Alex, ultimately in charge, was the one to say it. "He's too loyal to trust."

He couldn't make himself say the actual words – _kill him_ – but the meaning was clear and it just made it horribly real to say it out loud. It had to be done, Burnett couldn't be trusted and Alex knew it, but that didn't make it any easier. Maybe they could capture him and send him to Dr Three, because he had to know a lot of details about Warren's organisation, but that thought was even worse and Alex refused to even consider it.

It had to be done. He would just do his best to ignore the fact that they would decide the life and death of a number of people based on a cold, clinical file and a few words.

Hyde made a note. "Howe? He's an ambitious little bastard; I think Warren would have shot him already if he didn't do such a good job."

Howe was almost as easy, his file made that abundantly clear. "He's an opportunist; he'll go with whoever pays him the most."

Or in this case, whoever let him live.

Hyde nodded. Made another note. "He'll need to be reminded of the facts of life under new management but he's a goldmine of intel. I'll handle him." He glanced over at Ruiz, in charge of Ussuri. "Commander?"

Ruiz glanced at the file. "I'll have a few people ready to grab him when Warren is handled. He's got pitiful security. Consider it done."

 _Handle him._ Alex knew perfectly well what those words meant. Hyde had been a diligent student. That included torture.

"All right. Chan. The most recent of Warren's lieutenants. He was recruited from -"

The weight of it all settled heavier with every name. It would be a long morning.

* * *

The list was long but the big issue came after they had gone through it all. At least it did for Alex. They had been at it for almost two hours of decisions and discussion, long enough that the numbness had long since settled and Alex had almost become desensitised to just what that list was. Every mark one more death, maybe not by his hand but by his orders, and still, two hours later, it had become so easy to make that verdict, so easy not to think at all. He was tired and overwhelmed and just needed a break and – it was so very easy, and if he didn't, someone else would just make that decision instead, and did that really change anything?

Alex had almost become desensitised … but just almost.

"What about Warren's wife and kid?" Hyde asked. "I doubt they know anything, but loose ends just get messy. We have people in the area and their security isn't impressive. We can have it handled in a couple of days."

 _Handled._ The painfully familiar term forced itself through the numbness of it all, the haze of names and criminal records, and settled like ice.

Alex remembered Warren's file, remembered the photos of Warren's son, those same photos he had used to mimic Isaac Warren's appearance, and his stomach turned.

His immediate response was no. He still forced himself to stop and think it through.

 _Morals are a luxury afforded to those skilled and powerful enough to defend them_ , that was what Yassen had told him, and while Alex still wasn't at that point, he had come a lot closer than the first time Yassen had told him that.

Yassen would not accept an appeal to emotions but if Alex could argue convincingly enough, if he could at least prove it was properly thought-out stupidity and not the impulsive kind, maybe he would accept it, anyway.

This was Alex's graduation assignment. In a very real way, this would be the foundation of the sort of SCORPIA he would one day be in charge of, if he didn't fail or got killed along the way.

 _Don't target innocents. Don't target kids._

Yassen and Dr Three would expect him to clean up any potential complications, and Warren's family counted. Maybe Isaac Warren was too young to be a danger just yet but his mother could easily have access to the sort of resources and ruthlessness required to want revenge.

Go after Isabel Warren, then? And leave a sixteen-year-old orphan with all the more reason to want revenge? Leave them alone and later, if either of them tried to target him as revenge – or worse, got someone he cared about caught in the crossfire – then … what?

When was the risk of revenge big enough to justify going after not just their target but everyone around him?

If Alex let them live and it one day got Jack killed as a result, he would never forgive himself. If he gave Hyde the order and had them killed with nothing more than a few words, then -

\- then _nothing_. Isaac Warren was _sixteen,_ barely older than Alex. Maybe Alex himself was considered an adult by everyone around him but normal sixteen-year-olds were still teenagers, still children, still just finding their way in the world, and Alex still had lines he refused to cross.

 _No._

He was not about to give that order, he was not about to look the other way while someone else did, and Yassen and Dr Three would just have to cope.

He would leave both of them alone. Maybe make sure their local assets kept an eye on things as well, just in case, but that was it. Isabel Warren was an intelligent woman by all accounts. She would be smart enough to know that SCORPIA could easily have gone after them as well and that she and her son lived on SCORPIA's mercy. Hopefully that threat would be enough.

This was Alex's assignment. Alex's test, Alex's responsibility, and Alex's decision, and Alex planned to run it the way he hoped to one day run SCORPIA, too. And if that kind of management was something Dr Three couldn't accept, well, better for everyone if that got settled now.

"No." Alex's response when he finally spoke was calm and utter unyielding. "We leave them alone. I think she'll be smart enough to know her son would be a target and stay out of this. If not, we'll have a talk with her. No one goes after them without my permission."

 _No one._

It was no longer Alex Rider that spoke but Orion, and the reaction was instant. Marcus didn't react, used to Alex-as-Orion in a way the rest of them weren't, but the other three team leaders straightened slightly and every muscle in Hyde's body tensed for a second before he relaxed again – carefully.

"I'll arrange for surveillance," he agreed.

Hyde didn't add 'sir' to that but Alex suspected that if they hadn't been former classmates, he might just have.

 _Am I really that intimidating?_

The answer came to him right on the heel of that question. _Intimidating_ was the wrong word. _Dangerous._ Alex Rider was dangerous. He was the second in command of Yassen Gregorovich, his hand-picked apprentice, one of Malagosto's graduates – notoriously unstable as a general rule – and he was _sixteen years old._ It didn't matter that Alex listened to whatever Marcus and the others would teach him and any help and advice they offered, because that wasn't exactly known to anyone who hadn't worked with him. The important part was that at the end of the day, Orion answered to exactly two people in all of SCORPIA, and neither of those would be likely to do much more than reprimand him if he decided a lowly operative or combat team hadn't lived up to expectations and done something permanent about it.

Former classmate or not, Orion was a danger to Hyde. A sixteen-year-old mess of hormones, possibly a lethally short temper, and much more influence than any teenager should ever hold.

That wasn't the person Alex wanted to be.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He felt Orion fade with it, the slight shift in posture and expression that somehow made a world of difference.

"I want your advice, that's why you're here. I want you to tell me if I'm about to make a mistake, I want you to tell me if my plan is stupid. I need to know these things and Marcus can tell you that I'll listen. But I won't kill children, and I won't let anyone else to do it, either."

Because he was in a position now where he could demand that. He hadn't in Singapore, he hadn't been able to do anything to save Jacob Sullivan, but he could do that much for Isaac Warren. Robert Warren would be dead, that had been decided the moment Dr Three looked at his network and decided it would be useful, but Alex could at least make sure that casual approach to murder didn't extend to Warren's son and wife.

No one commented on the fact that Isaac Warren was no older than Alex. That while one was a child, safe in the lap of luxury in Seattle with his mother, the other was a trained killer, treated as an adult, and part of the highest echelons of a terrorist organisation.

"Think of it as a chance to help train your future boss," Marcus suggested and broke the tension. "Educational and all that shit."

The silence still stretched for several more seconds before Hyde nodded. Everyone else seemed to take their cue from that, too, and relaxed fractionally.

"Surveillance," Hyde repeated. "Maybe send someone to explain the facts of life to them."

Alex nodded. Hyde made another note. One more thing was decided. Isabel Warren probably had bank accounts away from their main ones. They'd be fine. Maybe not mentally, and Alex could acknowledge that, but they would be alive.

"One thing," Alex said, the one part of the operation that still gnawed at him. "We need to make a statement but I'm not letting anyone within a mile of Warren's home. That place is a possible death trap. I want it razed to the ground from as far away as possible."

"It's pretty likely he has more than just the Claymores, yeah," Donovan agreed, just a little cautious still. "You sure about Warren, though? If you want the place in sort-of one piece, we can make it work."

"We've got plans to target him when he's away. If we can't get him alive, that's my problem." Shale's plans had been practical and efficient and reminded Alex a little of Yassen's approach. Then again, Shale had also been Yassen's backup with Mikato, so maybe that wasn't a surprise.

Donovan made a humming sound but didn't comment.

Next to Alex, Marcus tapped his fingers against the blueprint.

"… You know," he said, slow and thoughtful, "I've always wanted to see a bunker buster in action."

Harrell looked up from his own careful scrutiny of the papers. Well into his thirties, he was the oldest of the group and to Alex's experience the most careful of them, too. " _S_ _eriously?_ "

Marcus shrugged. "It'll make a statement. That's the point. We all know he's got more shit than just Claymores hidden away. Kill Warren when he scurries outside and drop a bunker buster on that place. He's got land mines? Get a bigger bomb."

 _Bigger bomb._ Alex still remembered his lessons during his two weeks in Baghdad. Bunker busters had been a purely theoretical thing but he had seen footage and the thought of a bomb capable of going through six meters of reinforced concrete was something that had stuck.

Harrell looked unimpressed. "And how do you plan to get one of those, never mind something to deliver it with? Call up the Aussies and ask for a fighter jet for a couple of hours, promise we'll return it with a full tank?"

 _Why not,_ Alex thought, _Yassen managed to charter a **nuclear submarine**_ , but that wasn't really the point. Besides, Yassen was _Yassen._ Of course he knew how to get a nuclear submarine.

"You can fire them from helicopters, too. No one looks twice at those. And getting our hands on a bomb or two …" Marcus gave Alex a very pointed look, then glanced back at Harrell.

Harrell paused. Glanced at Alex as well and slowly got the same thoughtful expression before he looked back to Marcus. "I noticed your sniper's new rifle. Bit big to be useful for normal missions, isn't it?"

"He did a good job on a recent mission. Mr Gregorovich let him keep it as a bonus."

Alex felt the heavy weight of the full attention of the room as Donovan and Ruiz joined in.

"You know, I worked with Ammit for a couple of missions," Donovan said. "Whatever they wanted, they got, no questions asked."

Ammit, Nile's favoured combat team. Alex had never met them but he recognised the name. He could imagine they had been able to get whatever they demanded. No one would want to be the one to tell Nile that his people couldn't get what they needed to do their job.

Marcus shrugged. "What SCORPIA's favourites want …"

… _SCORPIA's favourites get._ He didn't need to complete that sentence.

And Alex was Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice and second in command, as close to the executive board as anyone got without a place there. If Alex wanted a bunker buster or two for a mission, SCORPIA would provide. No questions asked. Maybe Yassen would ask, maybe Dr Three would – though Alex doubted that – but SCORPIA as a whole wouldn't even blink. Maybe it would take a week or two to procure, but Alex would get them. Probably even gift-wrapped if he wanted that, too.

Make a statement. That would be a statement, wouldn't it? Alex remembered the footage he had seen and tried to merge the image of brown, dusty, hidden bunkers destroyed in a massive explosion with the picturesque vineyard that Warren owned.

It would kill anyone there. Had Warren's home been in a more populated place and not that isolated, it would possibly kill a number of bystanders, too. It still could, if someone got the target wrong.

It would kill everyone. But so had Sagitta and Danube in Miami; everyone from Ramos' security and all the way to the kitchen help, and it had been the same thing in Rensburg's home in the Congo. Leave no survivors. No witnesses. No one.

Alex could send his teams to do it personally. Accept that Warren's home was heavily protected and that he would likely lose people to whatever traps that place had been littered with. Or he could just – order a slightly more thorough attack. It wasn't like anyone would have been left alive, anyway. Did the method really matter, then? The outcome would be the same, it was just that one option would keep Alex's people safe.

Alex's train of thought made it sound so reasonably to himself. He still tasted ashes in his mouth, the acrid sting of death, and wondered if this was his future.

One mission after the other, one slight step further every time until Yassen and Dr Three had what they wanted. He would never even have considered something like this a year ago and he knew it.

It would be the sort of statement Yassen and the doctor might accept. It wouldn't be the slow, cold-blooded massacre, but it would still … make an impact, right?

Alex wanted to hit himself for that expression.

The room was silent as everyone seemed to wait for his decision, and Alex still wasn't used to the fact that they _did._ Yassen wasn't there. Alex was in charge, whether he wanted that or not. He still had times when he caught himself waiting for Yassen's orders.

Alex's responsibility. Alex's decisions.

Alex mentally weighed the deaths, the risk if a bomb like that got the wrong target, and the alternative if he sent Sagitta or Ussuri to handle the job on the ground instead, and realised with a sick feeling that there was really no decision at all.

Warren's home was a death trap and Alex was not going to risk his people to that. Attachments were dangerous, attachments were discouraged, but Alex was sixteen years old, and Sagitta was one of the closest things he had to sort-of-friends these days.

Alex doubted even Dr Three could have planned for this sort of thing, it was more like a delightful coincidence to him, but it was also a harsh reminder how much he might one day go along with if the alternative would be to risk Sagitta. Yassen had warned him about attachments. Alex hadn't listened and now it was too late. He couldn't just – not care. Decide they didn't matter any more. He would just have to accept it now and do what he could to make sure they didn't get tangled up in Dr Three's games any more than they already were.

He would try to shield them and do what he could to prevent any collateral damage. The blood would be on his hands no matter what. Did the method really matter, then?

… Yes, it did, but not enough that Alex could accept the alternative. And a small, horrible part of him was grateful he wouldn't have to be directly involved, that he wouldn't have to pull the trigger on someone or see the life leave their eyes or wash the blood off of his clothes afterwards.

Just – push a button and make all those little problems go away. He would never even know the real number of casualties. War was a lot easier when you didn't have to do the killing or dying in person.

No one spoke, no one seemed willing to rush his decision, and that really hammered home the fact that it _was_ his decision. Yassen wasn't there to make the choice for him or _encourage_ him to make the right one.

Whatever Alex decided, there would be consequences. He would just have to make sure it was consequences he could live with.

"… No civilian casualties," Alex finally said. "No mistakes."

An instant and it would be over; not the prolonged terror of a bombing gone wrong or a home turned into a slow massacre. Maybe if he told himself that enough, it would actually matter.

Marcus nodded. "We'll get it handled."

That was it. For a decision like that, it felt horribly easy. Just give the order and Marcus would handle the rest. Maybe Alex would need to put his name somewhere but with Sagitta as his official security detail, he probably wouldn't even need that. His name would be on the order, it would get flagged as something important, and if Marcus had done it without Alex's permission, that would be Alex's headache and not whoever handled logistics.

Hyde scribbled a few more notes. Marcus packed away his papers. Donovan stretched and cracked his knuckles.

"Lunch, then." If he was in any way bothered by the number of people they had just condemned, it didn't show.

Alex caught a last glimpse of the list as Hyde packed it away, full of black marks and blue notes, and lost what little appetite he had.

It had to be done. If he hadn't, someone else would have, and someone else wouldn't have cared about Alex's teams.

Now he just had to make himself believe that.

* * *

 _I wish I'd paid more attention in Miami,_ Alex admitted late that night when sleep refused to show and he was too tired to read any more reports.

Yassen's response was as fast as always. _It is perhaps for the better that you did not._

Because SCORPIA did not appreciate unwanted curiosity in her operatives, Yassen didn't need to spell that out. Alex knew that. It still didn't change the fact that things would have been easier now if he'd had a better idea of what Yassen had done back then.

In retrospect, Yassen had done a great job keeping him too busy and exhausted to be curious. One more way to protect him from the executive board that Alex hadn't realised until much later.

There were a lot of things Alex wanted to tell Yassen, but they were all painfully familiar to both of them. _I hate you, I don't like this, I don't want this, I refuse._

Yassen already knew. He probably even expected it.

Alex rolled over in bed to stare at the wall and waited for sleep instead.

* * *

Next: Back in action (honestly this time!)

A/N: I plan to fit in one last interlude before the end of the fic, so anything in particular you really want to see, now would be the time to mention it.


	94. Ars Bellica, part II

Alex's delivery arrived within the week. He wasn't sure what he had expected. A professionally organised shipment to a logistics company owned by SCORPIA wasn't it.

The warehouse was huge and brightly lit, with tightly-packed, towering shelves that reached all the way to the ceiling. Forklifts and employees moved around with the determination of people who most certainly did not want to work overtime, thank you very much.

No one spoke, just silent figures amidst the sound of wheels and shifting machinery and insistent, warning beeping. No one paid Alex any attention, either. Everyone very carefully minded their own business.

The crate that arrived was made of metal, somehow ominous-looking, and absolutely huge. The forklift that carried it carefully navigated the hallways and Alex couldn't blame the driver. In some spots, the crate just barely cleared the shelves with a couple of inches to spare.

The forklift paused. Lowered its cargo. Two of SCORPIA's people set to work opening the case.

"This is what you have minions for," Adams told him as they waited for the two guards to finish up. "The boss gets some idea or another, but it's our job to make it work. Never trust Marcus with logistics. I've blocked his access. He would've had the lot of us blacklisted the first time he lost his temper with them."

"It is that big of a headache?" Alex had only ever had good experiences with them. But then, it was probably a different experience when you were higher up in the system than a lowly combat team was.

Adams paused. "Sometimes," he finally said. "I know how to talk with them and we never demanded anything ridiculous. We stayed within budget. Anything out of the ordinary for a combat team, I knew how to argue for. Get on the wrong side of them, though, and you're absolutely fucked. They're a petty bunch of penny-pinching bastards when they want to be. This, though? I don't think you get how many doors your name opens. I got two small bombs. One primary, one back-up that I don't expect we'll need to use. There has to be subterranean levels to the house, but that doesn't mean we need the heavy duty stuff. The smaller bombs are cheaper and easier to get. Same result, too. Marcus can live without his huge explosions."

 _Smaller bombs._ The crate was fourteen or fifteen feet long to Alex's estimate. He didn't want to know what a big one looked like.

The lid was opened. The bomb itself, long and sleek, was strapped firmly into place and nestled in enough padding to protect a Ming vase. It looked new. So brand new, in fact, that it looked like it should still have whatever the missile version of new car smell was.

"Shipped straight from the factory," Adams said and unknowingly confirmed Alex's suspicions. "Both of them have been written off as used in a training exercise."

Alex did the mental calculation. It had taken six days from he had given the order and until he had the crate in front of him. Six days, delivered from the factory and including shipping to Australia.

Was there _anyone_ out there who refused to deal with terrorists? Some days Alex doubted it. It wasn't like the intelligence agencies had any qualms. Why should weapon manufacturers?

One of the guards handed over the papers. Adams set to work confirming everything as Alex watched and felt a little useless.

It didn't take long. A few minutes and Adams nodded and the two guards set to work packing the bomb back up.

"… Just like that?" Alex asked.

"Just like that. Everything should be in order. They've got decent range and pretty accurate targeting systems, so we can fire them well away from Warren's hideaway. We've got a helicopter getting set up for this sort of thing as we speak. Slap some coast guard colours on it and no one should ask too many questions during the time we need it in the air."

They left the warehouse and stepped out into the fading light of early evening. Artificial light spilled out behind them and was abruptly cut off as the door closed again. Their car waited exactly where they had left it, Ivey flipping through some weapons magazine or another in the driver's seat. He looked up at they got into the car.

"All in order?"

"All in order," Adams agreed. "Boss gets a big boom."

"That'll make him happy."

The car came to life beneath them. The gate rolled aside to let them out. Alex caught one last glimpse of the warehouse as they left and the gate closed again. It looked perfectly, utterly anonymous.

Traffic wasn't as bad as it could have been. Alex spent the time staring at nothing as he let his thoughts drift.

"… Are we doing the right thing?" he eventually asked.

Adams looked up from the paperwork he was half-heartedly filling out. The movement of the car didn't do his handwriting any favours. "Depends, I guess. What's more important, intel or the statement."

"Warren is a scapegoat."

"Does it matter? Yeah, sure, Dr Three and Mr Gregorovich dressed it up nicely as a test but that doesn't change your orders. Kill Warren, take over the business, pretend he was behind the attack and retaliate hard enough to make sure no one else gets any stupid ideas. You're going to lose out on some intel when you wipe out that house but a bomb like that is a statement that'll get the point across. Not too many crime bosses have things set up to a point where they can protect against that."

"It can make a target of us, too. ASIS and the rest of the intelligence world won't like it."

"Maybe it'll be written off as an internal matter." Adams sounded unconcerned.

 _Maybe. Probably_ , Alex conceded. The explosion would probably make them unhappy but they weren't likely to care much about a territorial dispute among criminals.

"If it's the bombs you're worried about, everyone's got those these days. They practically give them out in cereal boxes. Make them twitchy, you want weapons of mass destruction, not this." He paused. "Or experimental, that'll get them twitchy, too. This is nothing."

Was he right? Alex really didn't know. He supposed he would just have to trust it. It wasn't like he had much of a choice.

* * *

 _I think I work for the terrorist version of Amazon,_ Alex told Jack late that evening _._

Her response was suspiciously fast. He wondered if she was as desperate for a break from homework as he had been sometimes. _Can they get me a decent pumpkin spice latte?_

… _It'd probably be poisoned._

 _Then they won't get more than two stars from me_

Alex couldn't help himself. He had to ask. _TWO stars?_

 _Well, it's still a pumpkin spice latte. Maybe three stars if it's the proper Starbucks stuff and it comes with the antidote_

 _I think that's called an addiction._

 _I think that's called a sign of excellent taste. Go to sleep, Alexx. You need it_

Alex wanted to argue. The huge yawn that followed despite his best efforts to stop it let him know that it was a lost cause.

* * *

The world around Alex had descended into organised chaos as everything fell into place. It also left him with an uncomfortable question.

Where, exactly, should he be? Where would he be most useful – or, more likely, get the least in the way of everyone else? For once he even had the option of just … sitting it out. Keep an eye on everything from above, and maybe Yassen and Dr Three wouldn't be impressed with that decision, but it was still an option.

Of course, it also meant if there was anywhere Alex _could_ be useful and he stayed out of it, that would leave his people one man down from the start and he didn't think he could forgive himself if someone from Sagitta got hurt or killed because he was squeamish.

Should he help with Warren? But Shale and Jarek could handle that just fine with backup. It wasn't like Alex was a better sniper than they were. Taurus and Lepus would take out the top part of Warren's network; those that couldn't be convinced to work for SCORPIA. Ussuri would be with Hyde.

Clean-up afterwards would take days and weeks, hunting down anyone who escaped and stomping out small fires, but Alex wouldn't be needed for that. Frankly, Alex was pretty sure he wasn't even needed for this, but he had orders. Yassen wanted him in the field and visible, so here he was.

 _Thank you, Yassen._

At least the paperwork didn't care one way or the other. The piles on Alex's desk somehow kept breeding like they were determined to not only make up for his sense of awkward uselessness but overcompensate while they were at it.

So. Many. Reports.

But then, that was what a second in command was for, wasn't it? Alex was reminded of Rensburg's compound and the piles of paperwork there, too. Marcus had handled some of it but most had at least crossed Alex's desk for approval before the much shorter versions were sent on to Yassen. The operation was Alex's this time, so the paperwork stopped on his desk, and he didn't have someone else to delegate it to. Marcus and the other commanders were used to keeping it short and factual but between four combat teams, Hyde, and the local assets, everything still piled up.

Alex needed to know what was happening. Maybe he didn't need the details, and he could trust his people to know what they were doing, but he still had to know. He had to be able to step in if something looked wrong and he was horribly aware that sixteen or not, he was probably the one person in the whole mess with the most experience with SCORPIA operations. Marcus and the other commanders ultimately had orders to follow, that was what they got paid for. They had some experience with the larger operations but had never been more involved than absolutely necessary. The local assets did as they were told. Hyde was used to solo assignments, not the larger operations. For better or for worse, Alex was the one with the most experience with the behind-the-scenes headaches.

"Well, that looks like a steaming pile of bullshit."

Alex looked up to find Marcus in the doorway.

"Your report is on top."

"Like I said," Marcus agreed, "steaming pile of bullshit."

He stepped inside the office.

"Did you have anything useful to add?" Alex asked, just a little dryly. "Otherwise, I'm sure I can find something in this mess that could use an experienced eye."

"You skipped lunch. Skip dinner, and Mace and Aranda'll come down on you like a ton of bricks."

Not just one but two medics to watch him like a hawk – and, worse, they would probably tattle to Yassen, too. Besides, the sandwiches he had slapped together as a sort-of snack had been really boring.

"… I'll be there," Alex promised.

"Good." Marcus paused. "Now, what's the problem? You've got that look."

Alex almost said _nothing_ , that it was just the paperwork, just worried about the operation, and then he paused. Decided a second later to go with honesty, because it wasn't like he would worry any less about things if he kept it to himself.

"… Yassen wants me in the field," he finally said. "Out there and visible."

Marcus didn't respond immediately but his expression turned thoughtful and Alex knew he got it. Where _would_ you fit a teenage assassin into a military operation that had to work like a well-oiled machine and be coordinated down to the minute? Sagitta had been in combat with him but even then he hadn't exactly been part of the team. He had still had his own thing to do.

"A reputation thing," Marcus concluded. "Maybe this won't get you that visible but it's a first step. You're still just a teenager."

 _Just a kid,_ he didn't say, though Alex suspected he wanted to.

"Stick with Ussuri and Hyde," Marcus said. "He'll deal with the minions we want to keep. That'll get you good and visible, more than the rest of the operation, anyway. You won't need to do much, just stand around and look Orion-y. It's the only place you won't need to fit in with a tight-knit team. Shale and Jarek could work, too, but you wouldn't be that visible there."

 _And how many snipers did they actually need for that job?_ Marcus didn't say that part, though Alex was sure he at least thought it.

Stand around. Look like Orion, like what everyone expected Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice to be. He could do that.

"… That works."

 _Thank you._

"Good. Now shove over some of that pile of shit and let me see what I can do. Can't be worse than Adams' snarky little comments that he thinks I don't notice."

Alex's lips twitched and he handed Marcus the most recent updates from their local assets. "Old married couple?"

"In that case, he's the ugliest little old lady I've ever seen."

Marcus settled down. Grabbed a pen and set to work.

It went a lot faster with help.

* * *

It took another three days to get a helicopter set up to carry the two bunker busters and make sure their people could remove the extra equipment again as fast as possible. Like Adams had predicted, the thing had been painted like a rescue chopper. The disguise wouldn't hold up to any real kind of scrutiny, but it would buy them enough time to get the job done. People might complain about tourist or media choppers, but they were less likely to complain about rescue ones.

It would take off the moment Warren had been taken out, one way or the other, and it wouldn't need long in the air. If the first bomb somehow failed, they would know with enough time to launch the second one before it had to land again.

Remove the disguise, remove the additional gear … an hour and a half after landing, any evidence should be gone and the helicopter would be just another sightseeing chopper.

Professional. Efficient. Alex had seen that kind of clean-up before. It still made him vaguely uncomfortable, the realisation of just how good SCORPIA was at that sort of thing. Just how much practice they had.

An hour and a half, and it would be like it had never happened at all.

* * *

Warren had an office on the outskirts of Sydney, and Alex used the word 'office' in the loosest possible sense. Warren was sensible enough not to want to cause trouble around his family and he made sure to keep his professional life well away from his home.

The 'office' was a modern villa, all white, with broad expanses of bulletproof glass, and an outdoor pool. The entire place was surrounded by nature: a well-kept lawn bordered by enough forest to allow for privacy, even if the closest neighbour hadn't been far enough away not to pose a problem.

It also had security at all times. They hadn't been able to get too many details, since Warren would definitely have grown suspicious if any of his trusted guards had suddenly vanished, but based on surveillance it was competent but not a real threat.

It was enough that between Alex and Hyde, most of Ussuri, and Alex's security – Mace and Ivey had apparently drawn the short straw – they could clear out the place without an issue. The place would hopefully have at least some intel to make up for the destruction of Warren's home but the people that worked there were all deemed too loyal to trust.

Without Warren present, those guards numbered around ten. With Warren and his personal security around, that number rose to twenty, sometimes as many as twenty-five, and security went on high alert. It didn't have the lethal traps of Warren's home but with the man himself and his security present, any attack would still be met with deadly, competent force. If things went according to plan, though, that wasn't going to be a problem.

It would be less of a bloodbath than Miami. Than the Congo. Than Santa Catarina. It still reminded Alex uncomfortably of all of them.

Standard SCORPIA approach. Kill anything you don't explicitly need alive.

The only difference was that previously it had always been on Yassen's orders. Alex had never had any real say in things.

This time that order had been his own.

The practical part of him knew he hadn't had any real choice. It would be a lethal weakness to leave survivors behind that might want revenge, and Warren had plenty of loyal people. They were too much of a risk to leave alive. Maybe most of them would vanish into the criminal world again and just count their blessings that they were still alive. Maybe. All it would take would be one person with the resources and enough of a grudge. One person, enough skill and luck, and there would be no guarantee that Alex, heavily protected, would be the target.

He had no choice. It still left a dark, heavy feeling in his mind that he knew would never entirely go away.

* * *

When Alex had arrived in Australia, the actual operation had seemed like forever away, some hazy future that he had too many other responsibilities to handle to actually focus on. Now, in uniform and in the cover of darkness, time seemed to have passed in the blink of an eye.

It felt tense and foreign and familiar all at once. Alex had started to get used to that sort of operation. It was not a thought he liked to linger on.

" _We're in position. People are up and moving but no sign of the target yet."_ Shale, Alex recognised his voice. Shale and Jarek, and enough backup to bring Warren in alive if they could.

Marcus was there, too. Supposedly to supervise but mostly because he wanted to see the explosion. Alex hadn't been about to tell him no.

Everyone else was in position, too. Shale's report was the final one they had been waiting for and, Alex knew, the trickiest position, too. Warren's people had been thorough about security. There was no easy way to target him.

Alex was with Hyde and the others in the forest that surrounded Warren's office. Dawn was almost an hour away. Compared to Alex's schedule at Malagosto, it wasn't even all that early.

Ivey shifted "Nothing to do but wait, then," he murmured.

Wait. The bane of Alex's existence these days. He didn't sigh, though. Just settled in and tried to be patient.

* * *

Dawn came, pale and sluggish.

Alex watched the sunrise in small glimpses among the trees. Then he watched the light slowly get brighter as the winter sun crawled above the horizon.

The wait was the worst of it. It was bad enough when Alex was right in the middle of things. On the outskirts, just waiting for something, _anything –_ that was actually worse. That overwhelming feeling that he couldn't even do anything. Just … wait for news, whatever they might be.

Warren left anywhere between seven and ten in the mornings most days. A few times it had been earlier or later than that, but that three hour span covered most of it. He didn't seem to take entire days off. He obviously had business to handle and things to settle while his wife and son were away.

Their people were in position. The helicopter was ready to take off on short notice. Everyone was silent. Waiting.

Alex felt the tightness of his body armour and the heat of his uniform, the drop of sweat on the back of his neck and the weight of his weapons, and felt like every second dragged slower than the last.

A minute. Another. It could be another two minutes. It could be another two hours.

No one else seemed bothered. At the most, they looked a little impatient; the slight tap of fingers against fabric or the regular check that everything was still in place. Alex had always hated waiting. He had been useless at the meditation technique Malagosto taught, and only Yassen's instructions had taught him to slip into some sort of slight trance behind a sniper rifle.

There was no Yassen now. No sniper rifle, either. Just the smell of nature and damp leaves, of fabric and guns and sweat, and the endless wait.

A soft sound in his earpiece. And the radio silence broke.

* * *

" _This is Shale. Target is dead; operation is a go."_

* * *

For a second Alex was stuck between half a dozen conflicting emotions – sudden tension and adrenaline, relief that he wouldn't have to decide how to deal with Warren, the tight knot of dread that Dr Three might decide to make an issue of that, things he couldn't even put words to – and then everything kicked into motion.

Alex knew what he was supposed to do, knew his place on the team, knew the plan.

Somewhere to the north of them, a helicopter was about to take off. In a number of places in Sydney and the surrounding areas, an equal number of people were about to have a bad morning. Alex watched as the people around him moved, silent figures circling the villa, and followed a heartbeat later.

Everyone moved fast. They had to. Their jobs would get significantly more dangerous if someone managed to warn their targets first.

In Alex's earpiece, conversation picked up. There was always the slight risk that it would be a distraction at the wrong time but Alex wanted to be up-to-date. _Needed_ to be up-to-date. It was his operation and if anything went wrong, he needed to know.

* * *

" _Target in sight. On my mark -"_

" _\- lost visual, does anyone have contact? Last confirmed -"_

* * *

Alex's gun was a familiar weight in his hand, and the sense of moving as a unit came unnervingly easy. He wasn't that used to Ussuri but he had spent three months at Malagosto with Hyde and both Mace and Ivey were a familiar presence at his back.

Two entrances, both solid doors but nothing that could stand up to actual force. Eleven people present at the last count, several of which they already had a visual on through the broad windows.

There were cameras, too, but they didn't bother with them. Just moved fast enough that it hopefully wouldn't be an issue.

They reached the garage door. Less than ten seconds and a small amount of explosives saw the lock ready to blow. The radio came to life again the instant later.

" _Front entrance, ready."_

"Ready," Mace replied. "In three, two -"

 _\- one -_

The explosion was sharp but contained, hopefully enough that it wouldn't draw attention beyond the villa. On the opposite side of the house, the echoing explosion came almost simultaneously.

"Go!"

Alex slipped into training and instinct and refused to let himself think.

* * *

" _\- Target spotted, left of building -"_

" _\- got backup, at least two -"_

" _Would someone just **shoot the fucker?!** "_

" _\- can't get a clear shot; echo, he's all yours -"_

" _ **Thank you,** fucking hell -"_

* * *

The first two guards they met stood no chance. There had been no warning but the explosives and without Warren present, they obviously hadn't kept a close enough eye on the cameras. That, or it had simply happened too fast.

Both were dead before Alex could even pull the trigger, and the sound of gunshots came from all around them as the second attack force encountered their first targets, too.

"Room," Ivey said. " _Go._ "

Technically Alex was in charge. It didn't change the fact that it was smarter and easier to listen to the voices of experience, because Alex wasn't about to pretend he knew better than career military people how to clear a building.

At least there would be no fragmentation grenades this time.

Mace kicked in the door. The wood yielded easily. Unlike Warren's home, this place was an office. A place to work. The rooms had never been intended to actually hold up to any serious attack. Security just had to delay for long enough to get Warren clear of it.

One figure, already moving -

\- And Alex fired the second before Mace could with the deadly accuracy born from months of training. He didn't even think but let instincts take over, cold and lethal and _Orion,_ because he couldn't afford a mistake, not now.

"Clear," Mace reported. "One target down."

" _Copy,_ " Ruiz's voice came clear and crisp. _"Five left."_

More gunfire somewhere close, barely muted by walls, and Alex half expected to find someone shooting in the hallway.

" _Two more targets down."_

" _And another."_ Ivey this time from the end of the hallway, and Alex glanced over to see him step past an unmoving figure on the floor.

There were holes in the walls already, bloodstains on the floor, and it was just made all the worse by how white it all was. White walls. White ceiling. Pale wooden doors.

" _Target down."_

Alex continued on with Mace. Ignored the smear of blood on one wall, the individual stripes from a hand nauseatingly clear.

" _Last target down."_ Ruiz again. _"Eleven accounted for. Ussuri, sweep the place."_

Alex didn't listen to the acknowledgement. Just closed his eyes. Took a deep breath.

It had been horribly easy. Security had been given no warning. Warren hadn't been in the villa. No one had any reason to expect an attack. None of Alex's people had been injured. None had been killed.

Part of him was grateful for that. Another part of him couldn't forget that they were safe and unharmed because it had been a cold-blooded slaughter.

* * *

" _We have a visual on the compound. Primary target has been hit; looks like it's completely wiped off the map. Any survivors, it's a fucking miracle."_

" _Copy, now get out of there."_

* * *

Ussuri swept the villa top to bottom just in case but found nothing they didn't expect. No nasty surprises. They also didn't find anything that looked like it might be useful for intel – no computers beyond the security stuff, no file cabinets, nothing – but Alex had kind of expected that, too. Warren was smarter than that.

Alex still never let down his guard. Sure, they had cleared it out but there was no guarantee they hadn't missed something. In Ramos' place, there had been an entire basement no one had even known about.

For now, though, things were quiet. No police on the way. No sign that the neighbours, well away from the villa, had noticed a thing. Most likely they weren't even up yet.

Warren's actual office was large and expensively decorated, with tall windows and a view of the forest beyond the villa. It looked like something out of a magazine.

Hyde stepped inside. Crossed the room and ran a hand along the surface of the heavy desk.

"Nice little setup he's got if it'll pay for this sort of thing," he said.

And now that setup would be Hyde's if he was able to take over successfully. It looked to Alex like he just got some added incentive to manage, at least.

Hyde settled down in Warren's office chair, a huge leather monstrosity that probably cost more than some people's cars. He spun around and for a brief second he actually looked his age.

"This is nice," he decided. "This whole setup. I think I'll keep it. Not this place, obviously, but something like it. It's … nice."

However much Hyde might like the villa, they both know that would be pushing it. An anonymous place, sure. Somewhere known by a number of people to be Warren's would be asking for trouble. And that wasn't taking into account the sheer amount of damage the attack had done to it. It could be fixed but it would be expensive. Alex doubted he would ever have been comfortable in the villa with the memory of just where those bloodstains had been. He also doubted Hyde would have lost a minute of sleep over that.

Hyde stretched. "The chair, though, I'm definitely keeping that one."

Alex's lips twitched. "I'm sure Professor Yermalov would have words about that. A comfortable assassin -"

"- Is a dead assassin," Hyde finished and groaned. "Don't remind me."

" _We've got Howe. En route, ETA fifteen minutes."_

Alex straightened slightly and felt his heartbeat speed back up. Hyde got up from the chair.

 _Showtime._

* * *

Howe was strikingly handsome, that was Alex's first impression. He had seen the photos in the man's file but it was still different in person. Tall and fit, with chiselled features and understated confidence, even accompanied by the two members of Ussuri that Ruiz had trusted to bring him in.

He was also, Alex knew, a stone-cold psychopath, and the blue eyes that locked briefly with Alex's did not have a drop of humanity in them. They could have been carved from ice.

Howe's attention had shifted to Alex for only a second but it was enough. Hyde had clearly spotted the slight shift in attention, because he shook his head.

"If you think he'll help you, you're in for a nasty surprise." He waited until Howe's attention shifted back before he continued. "That's Orion, Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice. If you piss me off, all I'll do is beat you to death. Orion there, now he's just looking for an excuse to send you off to SCORPIA and Dr Three. A gift from a grateful student and all."

"How generous." Even Howe's voice was smooth and cultured, even with the drop of icy sarcasm in it.

One of his two keepers gestured towards a chair. Howe sat before anyone could force him.

"Isn't it just?" Hyde agreed. "Mr Howe, I regret to inform you that your boss has died in an unfortunate accident. The organisation is under new management. SCORPIA sees potential in you, however. New boss, same position. You'll hardly even notice."

He didn't specify just what would happen if Howe refused. It was painfully obvious to everyone and Howe was an opportunist. If cooperating was in his own best interest, that was what he would do.

Howe shifted and seemed to relax just slightly, though Alex was sure it was an act. A way to show how sure he was that he was valuable enough to keep alive. Howe was intelligent and Alex was sure his mind was working fast to figure out the best course of action.

"That's a bit optimistic," Howe replied. "Robert built his operation from scratch and I was with him every step of the way. He trusted me like he trusted few others. That trust will be hard to recapture."

" _Robert_ ," Hyde said, "trusted you only as far as he could keep a leash on you. He would have had you shot if you hadn't made him so much money, and you know it. We'll be happy to offer you that same deal. Cooperate and be a wealthy little toady. Refuse, and I'll give the offer to the next person in line."

Even if that person didn't have a fraction of Howe's contacts and skills. Hyde didn't say it out loud but the implication was very much there.

Howe was silent for long seconds. Alex was sure he would take the deal, but maybe it was part of the act, maybe he had to think it through, or maybe he was just trying to work things out to his benefit.

"Warren paid me well," he finally said, and Alex knew he had agreed. They were just discussing the terms now, and that was Hyde's business, not Alex's.

"SCORPIA will match it," Hyde replied. "I'll look the other way if you pocket a small percentage, too. That is an exceptionally generous deal for a slippery little opportunist like you. Don't get greedy and we'll be just fine."

Howe glanced at Alex again. Turned his focus back to Hyde. At least he didn't comment on Alex's age, or on Hyde's. He was too much of a survivor for that. Their age didn't matter when SCORPIA trusted them that much. They were obviously skilled enough to do the job.

"Agreed." Short and to the point. If he had any feelings about Warren's death, it didn't show.

"Excellent. Give me any reason to doubt your loyalties, and I'll leave you in open water with a bucket of bait and take bets on whether the sharks or the sea gets to you first." Hyde smiled. It was all teeth. "You were a competent swimmer in school; my money's on the sharks."

Howe's eyes cooled a degree. "Charming."

Hyde's answering smile was sharp and vicious. "Welcome to SCORPIA, Mr Howe. We'll get along _just_ fine."

And that was it. Alex let out a slow breath. Felt the stress slowly ease. There was still a lot to do, a lot that could go wrong, but this was a start. A solid start.

 _Take over. Send a message._

Welcome to SCORPIA.

* * *

Next: One last interlude to wrap up some loose ends


	95. Interlude: Catharsis

A/N: For this one, we're going a little further back than the previous interlude. This one stretches from early March and to late May. It's also nowhere near as long as I wanted it to be, but I didn't want to postpone it too much or split it up in two.

* * *

In some ways, Manila was completely foreign to Nile. A new country, new languages, new people, new challenges.

In others, it was nothing Nile hadn't done before. Take over for SCORPIA, ensure the operation ran smoothly … except this time, he would not move on once things were stable. The Manila operation was his. Highly profitable if he succeeded. Almost certainly fatal if he failed.

It was not a demotion from second in command to one of the board. It wasn't truly a promotion, either. It was simply different.

It wasn't unwelcome. Nile was keenly aware that for the first time in two years, he was not in direct contact with one of the board on a daily basis. He would have other challenges, of course, but he would not be tangled up in the lethal politics of the executive board.

It felt – different. It felt like relief.

Evening had fallen. The sun had almost set. The world around Nile seemed like endless slums, no different from a dozen other cities he had visited during his career, and while it made his security team twitchy, it also made clean-up wonderfully easy if anything happened.

The smells were familiar, the sights and the sounds and the road that had been swiftly deserted at the first sign of trouble, and Nile smiled faintly as a figure stopped by his side.

"How did housekeeping go?" he asked.

Sekhmet's answering smile was sharp and vicious. This close, Nile could smell the gun smoke on her uniform and the underlying remnants of petrol. The glow in her eyes told him the answer before she even spoke.

"Just _d_ _elightful_. A few cleaning supplies and the place was unrecognisable."

There were occasionally those who questioned a woman's ability to lead one of SCORPIA's best combat teams. Nile always enjoyed watching the fallout from that mistake, though it was a rare one these days. Ammit's reputation was brutal and well-earned.

"Did you leave me any survivors?" Nile expected so, he had given the order, but it never hurt to ask.

"A few. There are always some rats that manage to scurry out of the way. We'll wrap them up nice and pretty for you."

Plenty, then. Nile smiled. The first, sharp sting of smoke mingled with the air around them. Maybe someone would successfully put out the fire before it could spread too much. Maybe not. Nile had what he wanted; the rest wasn't his problem.

"Finish clean-up," he said. "We have enough to make an example."

Sehkmet nodded. "Sir."

There were still a lot of issues to get settled before Nile could really get to work on the operation but it was an excellent start.

* * *

There was a file on Tulip Jones' desk. It had been a more or less permanent feature there for the past two years.

She would bring it out. Put it on her desk. Lock it away again at night.

 _Alex Rider._

It had been a thin folder at first; Ian Rider's nephew – John Rider's son – and their least bad option among a number of miserable ones after Ian Rider was killed and they needed to move against Sayle.

The Stormbreaker plot had been beyond anything they had imagined. Alex's file had grown. Been put away again.

Then Point Blanc had happened, and Alex's file had grown further, and then the entire mess with Sarov, and -

\- Gregorovich. John Rider's old apprentice. Somehow, it all seemed to go back to the start.

There was a baby photo in the file taken three days after Alex Rider had been made an orphan. Not even three months old, with Ian Rider recalled from a mission as fast as MI6 could manage because there was _no one else they could trust, not after that_ , and Alex had been inconsolable. He had been too young to truly understand just what he had lost but he knew that he wanted his mother and she wasn't there. Ian had done his best but he hadn't been around much before, and Ash – tired, injured, exhausted – was in no shape to help.

Ash. His betrayal still stung; the knowledge of just how many years he had played everyone for fools. ASIS had shared what they knew. Tulip had gone through MI6's own files in person and too many things had added up. Little things, but little things that in some cases finally let her close files that had been left open for a decade or more.

Even in the photo, distracted by the camera, baby Alex had looked – sad. Resigned. It tugged on Tulip's memories of her own family, a dull ache that never really faded, and she flipped the page before the pain could sharpen.

The CIA had passed on a number of photos from their meeting with Alex Rider, the most recent high-quality photos anyone had. They refused to hand over their recording of the actual meeting but did pass on a few things.

Like in Riyadh, Alex had been injured. Unlike in Riyadh, the bullet had not been stopped by body armour. It was a minor miracle the boy was alive at all but he had always had the luck of the Devil. Much like his father. Much like his uncle.

He had the Rider looks at well. There was some from Helen, of course, but Tulip could see John in his features, stronger with every year.

Sometimes she wondered if they had done the right thing. Sayle had been stopped, millions of children had been saved, but Alex Rider should never have had to do it. Should never have been blackmailed into the sort of job that had broken grown men and women.

Necessity. Desperation. And then Point Blanc had happened, and it had been that little bit easier to send him off every time. He wasn't really an agent but sometimes – sometimes it had been so easy to forget he wasn't. He was one of their most successful people, even just based on the few missions he had been on, and it had been so easy to … look the other way. Alex Rider had saved millions. For every successful mission, it had become that much harder to ignore him as an option. He had a knack for finding trouble, an even bigger knack for getting out of it again, and that was so Ian, so _John_ , that Tulip felt her heart twist.

Then Gregorovich had happened.

Sometimes Tulip Jones wondered what she would say to John Rider, if she ever saw him again. The life of one child against millions, but that child had been John's. And now he was a killer; Gregorovich's right hand and one of SCORPIA's rising stars, and Tulip knew it was their fault. They had backed him into a corner, desperate and traumatised and alone, and one word had been enough to send everything tumbling down. Alex Rider had gone with Gregorovich, by choice or coercion, it didn't matter much to the end result.

The boy in the most recent photos was not the tired, lost baby any more, nor the grieving fourteen-year-old. He was sixteen, well on his way to an adult, almost as tall as John and with a bearing too similar to Gregorovich for anyone's comfort.

Maybe Tulip could have acted two years ago. Maybe she could have done something before Point Blanc. Before Sayle. She didn't know if Alan would have listened and perhaps that wasn't the point.

The point was that she never even tried. John had trusted them with his family's lives and security and they had failed miserable. John was dead, Helen with him, and Alex Rider was a sixteen-year-old accomplished assassin.

 _I'm sorry, John._

If there was any justice in the world, Alex Rider would have a long, happy life.

If there was any justice in the world, none of this would have happened in the first place.

* * *

"Your teaching methods," Yassen said, "leave something to be desired."

His voice was calm. Unnaturally, lethally so to those who knew him, and Dr Three did.

Yassen had seen the recordings of the assassination attempt multiple times before Alex had even left Johannesburg. It had only taken one time to raise his suspicions, though. It was nothing he could put his finger on, just sixteen years of experience and excellent instincts that he had learned to pay attention to.

The additional times he had watched those recordings had just sharpened that suspicion. He had let the initial fury smoulder. Ease. Settle into cold anger instead. He had hours still before Alex landed; enough time to afford it.

Only then had he hunted down Dr Three in his little kingdom.

The doctor paused at the comment. He did not bother to pretend ignorance, nor did he bother with the kind, benign veneer he usually showed. He knew it would be a wasted effort on Yassen.

"A calculated risk." The doctor dismissed his assistant with a slight gesture. The man obeyed easily. Only when they were alone in the office did Dr Three speak again. "You coddle him. We had fifteen years of your exceptional service to judge you on. Even then we gave you one final test to evaluate your suitability."

 _A calculated risk._ For a moment Yassen was tempted to pull his gun and simply shoot the man, remove the threat he posed in a permanent fashion, but stopped himself before he could.

Dr Three was not a careless man. He would not have survived for so long otherwise. He had contingency plans and they were both well aware of that. Most likely, those plans would see Alex as collateral damage; a predictable consequences of the attachment Yassen had not been able to help.

He would have to work around it, then. Yassen was sincerely displeased but any potential revenge would have to wait. Alex was due back in little more than two hours. By then, Yassen would need to have decided on a suitable course of action.

Alex had reacted about as well as Yassen could have hoped for. Time would tell how he would respond once the reality of it all had time to register. Assassination attempts would be a fact of life in their world. Yassen would have preferred that Alex was older when he had to deal with his first one but – perhaps it was better it had happened in somewhat controlled circumstances.

Dr Three watched him silently. Yassen did not doubt the man knew exactly what had gone through his mind. He had underestimated the man once. He was not in the habit of making such a mistake twice.

"If he does not have the adaptability and mental strength to survive his future training, better to find out now, before we invest further time and effort," the doctor said.

And while Alex still had the chance to survive such a failure, though that did not need spoken. If Alex had an unfortunate reaction to recent events, there were alternatives. He would perhaps never take over SCORPIA but there were other options, for Yassen and Alex both.

"You did not have the willingness to give the order," Dr Three continued, "so I arranged for matters instead. It would be more appropriate that it was done by your hand, should something have gone wrong, but it worked out well enough."

"Your thoughtfulness will not be forgotten."

Yassen prided himself on his self-control. Even then, the words slipped out before he was aware of it, less death threat and more icy promise.

Dr Three smiled. Kindly.

"I'm certain you have kept up to date on developments. One of the snipers was captured alive. I think it would be appropriate to leave the interrogation of him to young Alex. An educational experience. He is still reluctant to face the realities of this world."

Alex would hate it. It was still a lesson he would need to face sooner or later. The last time Alex had dealt directly with torture and not merely the aftermath had been Singapore. It was – unfortunately necessary. Even if not by Alex's own hand, there would still be times when he would need to witness it. When he could trust no one else to give him the information afterwards.

Yassen wanted to argue, just as a matter of principle. Instead he nodded sharply, annoyance plain in that small gesture.

Even now, as colleagues and reluctant allies, Yassen still felt like the student at times.

It was not a feeling he enjoyed. He suspected that with Dr Three no longer distracted by board politics, it was a feeling he would get uncomfortably used to.

* * *

The door closed softly behind Orion. Behind Alex Rider, Three supposed. The argument and defiance had been unexpected and a world away from the obedience Yassen had trained into him.

Alex had done well to keep himself together, Three supposed, though he didn't doubt the child would have a minor panic attack once the full realisation of what he had done settled.

A curious conversation, though. Unwanted in some ways. Interesting enough in others to make it acceptable.

" _It has been a while,"_ he mused out loud in Mandarin, _"since I have last been spoken to like that."_

" _The child clone?"_ Matteo asked quietly. He remained where he was, a step behind Three as he waited for instructions.

" _Longer than that."_ Three paused. Remembered the Grief clone. He had been interesting. Quite unhinged from the combination of his upbringing, his progenitor's end, and his time in captivity, but interesting. Three had deliberately and consistently referred to the clone as _Alex._ The rage that name had inspired had been quite the thing to watch. Three expected it would make a good case study in his next book. _"He was unstable. He did not have the capacity for true reason and self-control any more. Alexander knew quite well what he was doing. Impulsively, perhaps, but there was rational thought behind it. A conscious decision rather than primitive instinct. No. The Russian agent. He had that defiance, too."_

Not for long, of course, Three did not need to mention that, not even if Matteo had not been the one to organise the notes from that particular subject. Matteo didn't respond. Merely stayed where he was; a silent, obedient shadow.

Three quite appreciated a well-trained assistant.

Alex Rider was unusual. Three still hadn't made his mind up about him. It would be, he suspected, the work of years to know for sure if the child would be suitable for the position they had in mind for him. In some ways, Three could already see the adult he might one day become; strong and intelligent enough to be the successor SCORPIA would need to still thrive. In others, Alex was still but a child; impulsive and fickle and defiant at the worst of times.

A test would be good. A graduation assignment of sorts to allow him to make a decision for now. Alex would never stop being tested, of course, but this one would give Three a better foundation to base his decision on. Stress him. Isolate him. Force him to act without the guidance of his master and with only the people he had chosen himself to rely on.

If he succeeded, Three would evaluate matters further. If he failed, better he did so now before Three wasted any more resources on the child than he already had. Time was valuable. Three had contingency plans but not a world of time left to carry them out in these days.

" _Arrange for matters with young Crux."_

Matteo nodded and left on silent footsteps, a slight gesture enough to dismiss him.

Three's thoughts drifted back to Alex. Stubborn. Impulsive. Defiant. Perhaps he would one day be what SCORPIA needed. What would allow Three to secure a comfortable retirement. Perhaps that same stubborn defiance would see him dead before his next birthday.

Time would have to tell. Alex had the Rider luck on his side, and for once, Three found himself unable to guess the outcome.

* * *

There were times, Yassen conceded, when having Alex Rider as an apprentice and second in command were easier than others. MI6 had prized him for a reason. Skilled, intelligent, and lucky, with the ability to find loyalty and empathy in the unlikeliest of places … and an unfortunate ability to have his morals and impulsiveness make a reappearance at the most inconvenient of times.

People had died gruesomely for annoying Dr Three. The stories were well-known already when Yassen went through Malagosto, and while old age had calmed the man, they had not dulled the sharp mind or ruthless personality. If Yassen had doubted that in any way, he had been given ample proof to the contrary for the past few months.

You did not annoy Dr Three. You certainly didn't argue with him and expect to live.

And yet.

Yassen wondered if Alex Rider would be to blame for his first grey hair. Probably. Likely. The child had gone through RTI, had developed a healthy fear of the doctor, and Yassen had done everything possible to stress the importance of politeness -

\- And yet.

Alex was the potential heir to SCORPIA, someone loyal enough to keep his word and ensure that Yassen and Dr Three would enjoy the continued protection of SCORPIA even after retirement. That was still years away, though. He was not irreplaceable.

Yassen had pointed out the loophole in the doctor's orders in part to force Alex to stop and think, in part out of spite, in part to teach him to listen to the words of the order and not necessarily the spirit of it, and it part to make him actually consider the order and the necessity of such methods. And there had been the chance, however slight, that the doctor would have been amused enough at the dance of words to be lenient. Yassen had not expected Alex to keep arguing after being told no.

The doctor had indulged him this once. It was Yassen's job now to ensure Alex would not try such suicidal foolishness again.

The breakfast spread Yassen had arranged for was generous and mostly healthy. He expected Alex to be hungry. A growing teenager, and one who had not had much to eat for breakfast. Perhaps he had been too nauseated by the memories of the interrogation still but Yassen did not expect that to last.

Alex, when he arrived, slipped soundlessly into the room. As expected, his attention drifted almost immediately from Yassen and to the densely packed breakfast table.

"That looks like bribery," Alex said. "Or a reward."

He had learned to be suspicious, too. Yassen was pleased with that. His experiences with MI6 had taught him to be distrustful but it had taken Yassen's training to hone it into something consistently useful.

"I believe it's normally referred to as breakfast," he replied. "You did not eat much this morning. I expect you have realised by now that this was somewhat of a mistake. It seemed sensible to keep food around with a teenager present."

Memories of interrogation or not, Alex wasted little time. Hunger won over suspiciousness and he set to work with the determination that only a starved teenager could.

Yassen allowed him half an hour. He had a cup of coffee – not something he made a habit of, but not unwelcome when it was of decent quality – and otherwise caught up on reports as Alex made up for his lack of proper breakfast.

Only then did Yassen break the silence.

"Your impressions from the interrogation. I have seen Crux's report. I want a report in your own words."

It was not a subject Alex would be happy to discuss but he hid it well and answered without hesitation. He really had come a long way. "The sniper said he had been hired by Robert Warren, one of the people whose territory Yu took over. Crux thinks Warren could be a scapegoat. I agree."

The sensible conclusion and the correct one as well, but Yassen gave no sign of it. Nothing to encourage Alex's opinion, one way or the other. "And your reasoning?"

Alex took a deep breath. "It makes no sense. I looked him up last night and it looks like he pretty much just reclaimed his territory when Yu died but he's never shown an interest in expanding beyond that. There's been the usual things, a couple of assassination attempts and one attempted kidnapping of his son by a rival, but that's it and that's nothing that hasn't happened before, either. I was there with Yu but I was just security. I had nothing to do with it. All I did was look mildly intimidating and agree with him at the appropriate times. Warren would have no reason to target me, no reason to target SCORPIA, but all the reason in the world to want to _avoid_ that sort of thing. He knows what happened last time one of the executive board took an interest in his business."

Good, sound reasoning. Yassen was not surprised. Alex was young but he had been trained by competent people, some of them the best in their fields. He nodded slightly.

"That leaves, of course, a number of other motivations. Warren could have acted on false intelligence, planted by his own enemies, yours, or SCORPIA's. It could be a false flag operation; an assassination attempt arranged for by his enemies as a way to bring SCORPIA down upon him, by our enemies as a way to test SCORPIA's response to an attack, or by some of our own people in an attempt to make room for promotions."

Alex didn't look entirely convinced. That, too, was not a surprise. He still had little practical experience in such matters.

"That sounds like a lot of effort for someone to go through."

Yassen shrugged slightly. "Not as much as it sounds. I have been paid well to arrange for such things in the past. A convenient assassination attempt, one or two hired assassins fed false information and conveniently too inexperienced or unskilled to get away, and a surprising number of people will question it no further. Sometimes, it is desirable for the assassination to succeed. Sometimes, it serves the situation better should it fail and the target be suitable incensed not to look too closely once the scapegoat has been found and eliminated."

Some of Yassen's most well-paid assignment had been that kind of operation. Trickier than most, which meant they came with a payment to match. Yassen had had no complaints.

"So whoever's really behind it wanted me to survive," Alex concluded.

"Perhaps," Yassen agreed. "The competence shown was not what it could have been. Time may have played a part. It could also have been a matter of simply letting things happen. Perhaps you lived, perhaps you died. If they had no personal stake in things, it may simply not have mattered, and your reaction – SCORPIA's reaction – would be the important part. You will have ample opportunity to question Warren about it, however."

Not the sort of order Alex would enjoy. Yassen was not surprised when the child paused slightly before he answered. "Why go after him at all, then? If he's only a scapegoat, I mean."

"Because he may still have valuable information and the chance exists, however slight, that he was indeed responsible."

In the end, it did not matter if Warren was responsible or not. What mattered was to send a message harsh enough to deter any future attempts. They had the opportunity to do that now. SCORPIA did not plan to waste it.

Alex waited a heartbeat. Another. "… Yes, sir," he finally said.

Yassen nodded slightly. "I want a preliminary plan of attack by tomorrow evening. Use what resources you need to. You have some degree of practical experience by now."

He had the training for it and the people to support him where his training came up short. There would be no excuse for failure.

"Yes, sir."

The response came easier this time, the instinctive obedience. Yassen could not fault Yu for his desire to claim Alex as his second in command if it had been possible. He had still killed the man for it but he understood. Alex at fifteen had been skilled. Alex at eighteen or twenty, with the experience and training to go with it … he would have been a lethal, obedient weapon and the crown jewel in Yu's collection.

"On a somewhat more welcome note, I'm sure, the last of the rewards for Kurst's demise has been paid out. There were a number of people with a financial interest in his death. Some required more incentive to pay out than others. Accounting for exchange rates and the small percentage kept by SCORPIA as payment for handling those issues, the total came to just under one and a half million American dollars."

It was a significant amount of money even for Yassen, never mind someone like Alex who had only just paid off his Malagosto debt. It was expected, as Kurst had made a number of powerful enemies, but still a significant amount.

Alex was silent for long seconds. Yassen wondered what went through his mind. He usually had a fairly good idea but Alex had grown better at hiding his emotions.

"… That's a lot of money."

Yassen shrugged slightly. "Significantly less than some terrorists are worth. Significantly more than most of the rest of the executive board could have bragged about."

Another stretch of silence. This time the words that followed were no surprise to Yassen. Alex Rider was a terribly curious child; part of what had seen him caught up in so much trouble. His question was to be expected.

"… How much am I worth?"

It was not an impulsive question. He had clearly thought about it before he asked but Yassen still doubted he had thought it all the way through. It changed some part of you the first time you discovered just how much someone was willing to pay to see you dead. Yassen had seen it mostly as a reminder to never allow himself to become complacent.

Alex Rider was sixteen. Yassen knew exactly what his life was worth. He doubted Alex was ready to learn the same.

"Are you sure you want to know?" He avoided any challenge in the words, perceived or otherwise. Any subtle encouragement to get Alex to ask, anything that might goad him into agreeing. If Alex wanted to know, Yassen would tell him, but it would be his own decision.

It worked. Alex was silent for long seconds.

"… No," he admitted.

Yassen didn't speak but allowed him to work through whatever was on his mind. He watched the subtle shifts in his expression, recognisable only from long months together and far less than they once were, and he could pinpoint the exact moment the meaning of Kurst's bounty hit.

Alex had money. SCORPIA had mercenaries. Yassen almost felt bad for crushing that flicker of hope. Almost.

"No."

"I didn't say anything," Alex objected.

"You considered it," Yassen corrected, "and while I appreciate your ability to adapt to SCORPIA's approach, the task of ensuring this does not happen again falls to you. Not whoever you would hire to act in your place."

"… Yes, sir."

Yassen could almost hear the _whatever_ that had clearly threatened to come out instead. Another reminder that for all of his training and experience, Alex was still barely out of his childhood.

Little more than a child in many ways, and that was a potentially deadly thing in SCORPIA's world. Yassen had done his best to train every last bit of immaturity and impulsiveness out of Alex but he had obviously not succeeded. Yassen himself tolerated the arguments and defiance. Dr Three was not known for his patience with such matters.

Alex had to learn. Preferably before he got himself caught up in consequences even Yassen could not prevent.

"Now … would you like to tell me exact what you thought you were doing, arguing with the good doctor?"

Yassen did not delude himself into thinking that Alex's momentary silence was in any way a sign of regret. The stubborn anger in his eyes made that abundantly clear and his words confirmed it a second later.

"… that I wasn't going to torture someone, that I wasn't going to agree just because he said so, and you can both very politely go _fuck yourselves_ if you think you can make me. That's what I thought."

" _Alex._ "

" _No._ "

There had been a time when the unspoken threat of Yassen's displeasure had been enough to make the child obey. That was no longer the case and he supposed it hadn't been for a while.

Sometimes Yassen marvelled at the fact that Alex had survived to sixteen. Sometimes he wondered what he had let himself in for when he had decided to train the child at all. Alex Rider had been the traumatised, blackmailed spy at fourteen. At sixteen he was better trained than a number of agents Yassen had met and he had apparently found a sudden tendency towards teenage rebellion to go with it. It was not the best of combinations.

Yassen wanted to see Alex survive. Not for merely practical reasons, not for the ghost of Hunter, but simply for Alex himself. What the child chose to do with his life was not Yassen's decision to make, but he would do what he could to ensure Alex had the chance to grow up and make that choice.

"I told you to convince the good doctor," Yassen finally said. "I had hoped I had taught you enough common sense that it would not be necessary to remind you not to argue with the world's pre-eminent expert in torture. You are valuable to his plans. You are not irreplaceable."

"So I should just roll over and do as he says? He wouldn't have let me borrow Crux if I hadn't argued. You're the ones who wanted a successor," Alex argued. "Someone to take over SCORPIA. I'm not going to be a very good successor if I roll over the first time someone says no."

"A successor," Yassen agreed, "when you are of the _appropriate age and level of training._ "

Alex fell silent. Perhaps he had started to understand the seriousness of the situation.

"It could be another decade," Yassen continued. "When you are twenty-five, perhaps. Certainly well past your twentieth birthday. You have much to learn. To rush the matter would be to do both of us a disservice. Your training as an assassin and spy will do little to help you. You will need to understand how SCORPIA works and her place among her clients and competitors. You will need a solid understanding of politics and history. You will need training in psychology, to understand not merely your clients and enemies but your employees and operatives as well. You will need a solid foundation in economics and administration, in military strategy, in languages, in warfare, in science. You proved to the doctor that you have the stubbornness to succeed but you have years of training still to come. You are valuable but you are not irreplaceable. The good doctor has calmed down over the years. This matters little. The wrong word on the wrong day has still seen individuals – students, soldiers, valuable operatives – kept as research subjects."

Alex knew that. Yassen had warned him often enough. That the child would know this and still argue -

 _Alex._

Annoyance crossed Alex's features. "I know what he's capable of."

On a theoretical level, perhaps, but Yassen knew there was a world of difference between knowing something and have that knowledge actually sink in. Alex's responses told him beyond any doubt that while Alex knew on some intellectual level what the doctor could do, he had not allowed himself to face the reality of it.

"Do you? You refused to watch the evidence of Grief's dissection. It will only take me a minute or so to find the recording again, perhaps along with Howell's demise." Yassen could see the instant the words hit, the paleness to Alex's skill, the visible signs of the nausea Yassen had deliberately provoked. The Grief clone was still a lingering trauma, and the reminder drew a visceral reaction.

"The good doctor found the state of Howell's internal injuries quite fascinating," Yassen continued, calm and relentless, one word after the other to hammer the point home. "It was a severe injury and he lived with it for fifteen years. It is not often one has the chance to see the effects of time on such damage to the human body."

Yassen was still unsure what he felt about Howell's demise. The Grief clone was a simple matter; deranged, dangerous, and too close to Alex's appearance for Yassen's comfort, he would have shot the boy himself if given the slightest chance. Howell … Yassen hardly cared what subjects the doctor practised his hobbies on so long as the target was not Alex nor Yassen himself. Howell had, however, been the hand that caused Hunter's death. On the board's command, but still the one who had triggered that bomb.

Perhaps there was satisfaction that Hunter's killer had died on one of Dr Three's operating tables. Perhaps there was a flicker of annoyance that he had not been the one to handle that retribution. Perhaps there was slight relief that the man was not a potential distraction to Alex any more.

For now, Howell's death was mainly useful for the point it would make to Alex and it obviously served its purpose. Alex took a deep breath but didn't speak. Yassen could almost see him struggle through the nausea.

"People have vanished before," he continued when Alex remained silent. "I can do nothing to protect you if I cannot find you. Do you think the doctor cannot simply make any evidence vanish? Do you believe that there are not rooms in his building unseen by outsiders? That he does not have contingency plans? Do not antagonise him. His favour is still fickle. He merely hides it better these days."

The silent stretched on. Yassen watched the faint play of emotion on Alex's features, the struggle between common sense and Alex's persistent remnants of morals, and knew the answer almost before Alex spoke it.

"… All right."

Which, Yassen supposed, was the best he could hope for. He didn't sigh though he dearly wanted to. "You inherited your father's luck."

It was the only reason why Alex was still alive that Yassen could think of.

"His ran out."

Angry. Bitter. Yassen supposed he could understand that. "Did it?"

Alex bristled. "My parents were _murdered_ , in case you forgot."

"But you lived. The most precious thing in their lives and, I suspect, the reason Hunter wanted out of his undercover assignment. For fourteen years, SCORPIA never even remembered your existence. Had Ian Rider not insisted on an MI6 career, you could have lived the rest of your life out of SCORPIA's sight."

Sometimes Yassen wished he understood Ian Rider's logic. Sometimes he wondered if there had been any logic to understand. Ian Rider had been given a gift, Hunter's son, the only remaining part of his legacy, and he had not only insisted on an MI6 career but also left the child with no protection against possible enemies. Alex Rider's combined upbringing and training was that of a spy, not of a child taught to defend himself and survive at all costs against powerful enemies. With that background, Alan Blunt's interest was all but given. The fact that Ian Rider had failed to protect Hunter's son even against that was damning.

Yassen knew Alex tried not to think about it too much. His reply echoed that.

"Or I could have been dead from a genetically modified smallpox virus."

Yassen shrugged and didn't bother to deny it. "The possibility exists."

There were too many unknowns to ever know for sure, too many what-ifs to take into account. But the possibility could not be dismissed.

Alex fell silent again. The teacup in his hand became an outlet for his restlessness, the small bit of tea still left swirled around in circles.

"Why me?" Alex finally asked. "We have people in Australia. They know the area and local organised crime. The assignment should have been passed on to them, maybe with an operative to keep things in order. I'm supposed to delegate. That was my first lesson."

 _I don't want to do it_ , he didn't say, though the meaning was obvious.

It was a fair argument, too. In another situation, Yassen might even have allowed it.

"Because you need the experience. Because it is a long, slow process to make a name for yourself. Because you were the target. And because you are my second in command and such are your orders."

It was not a reminder Yassen had to make often but sometimes it was necessary. In the end, Alex still had to know when to take orders.

"I don't think 'Because I said so' is supposed to be good parenting."

The words had obviously slipped out before Alex could think about it, because Yassen doubted he would have voiced them otherwise.

Yassen had spent a lot of time training Alex out of his tendency to mouth off to people far more powerful than himself and he had never entirely managed. It had caused him significant worry at times. Mostly, he found that he did not actually mind. It was part of Alex Rider and Alex, at his most sarcastic and impulsive, was also remarkably honest.

Which, now, what made Yassen pause for the briefest of seconds.

He had never put words to his relationship with Alex. He wasn't certain 'relationship' was even the word he would use. The child was stubborn and defiant, impulsive and independent and with so many emotions it almost felt claustrophobic at times; hazy memories of the teenager he had once been himself.

The child was also lonely and neglected, caught up in events far beyond him, and an increasingly large part of his childhood had turned out to have been build upon a lie.

Kept in isolation and with Ian Rider's lies and MI6's brutal methods still vivid in his mind, Alex Rider had latched on to even the smallest gestures of kindness, and Yassen was a patient man.

 _Good parenting._

Yassen wondered what Hunter would have said to it all. To his child under Yassen's tutelage and on SCORPIA's payroll, to MI6's blackmail, to the training and Ian Rider and everything else.

Would he have been angry? Disappointed? Or simply grateful on some level that his son was still alive despite it all?

Yassen had lied, threatened, and emotionally blackmailed the child. He had pushed Alex beyond what most grown operatives could have handled, demanded the impossible and pushed Alex harder if he did succeed, and while he had done it to see the child survive, it did not change the facts.

It was the first time Alex Rider had admitted out loud the odd, paternal figure that Yassen sometimes was to him, in between being his mentor and superior and commanding officer. When the only other paternal figure the child had known had been Ian Rider … Yassen wasn't sure what that said.

For a moment he almost reached out to touch Alex's chin. Stopped himself before he could.

"I think," he finally murmured, "that I have committed significantly worse parenting sins than that, should anyone keep count."

He had shaped a fourteen-year-old into a killer. Perhaps his reasons had been somewhat selfless. It did not change the facts.

Alex swallowed. Looked away for a moment as the impact of what he had actually said seemed to hit him.

"… You've kept me alive. You've taught me to survive."

"Yes," Yassen agreed, "I have."

Like Hunter had for Yassen himself. For someone in their line of work it had been a gift. The skills to survive, to be successful enough to retire to a life of quiet solitude at an acceptable age.

It had been enough for Yassen. It was obvious to both of them that it would not be for Alex.

Alex looked down. Yassen wondered what went through his mind. Perhaps the overwhelming sense of the years to come, the sheer scale of what he would have to learn to one day have the chance to control SCORPIA. Perhaps the nagging, insidious thought of what would have been, had he turned down Yassen that day in London. He didn't ask. Just waited for Alex to look up and when that did not happen, broke the silence again.

"Alex."

Alex met his eyes, part obedience, part natural curiosity, part simple, trained response to Yassen's voice.

Yassen had not been a kind teacher but Alex was alive. He had the skills to remain that way now. With Alex caught up among powerful entities far stronger than himself, it was perhaps the best thing Yassen could do for him.

Would Hunter have agreed? It was not a thought he lingered on.

"I do not give such orders because I delight in your struggle with them," he said instead, an attempt at an explanation that Alex still needed to hear at times. "You need to learn, and this is an opportunity to gain such experience in a reasonably safe situation. Warren is likely a scapegoat; you are unlikely to face highly-qualified resistance. This is part of your education. You may still back out, but I think we both know that you would not take that option. Is it still a risk? Yes. Could we have delegated the assignment to another operative? Certainly. That is not the point. The point is to allow you to gain the experience you will need later, and gain it in such a way that when you face a far more dangerous foe, you will be better prepared. Listen to your commander. Use combat teams familiar with such assignments. Perhaps bring in a local operative to assist. Then carry out your orders and hunt down those responsible."

The silence stretched on again. Finally Alex spoke.

"… Yes, sir."

He sounded better. He looked it, too. He had lost the paleness, and the tension in his body had eased slightly. The explanation had served its purpose, then.

"You have a check-up this afternoon," Yassen said. "A precaution after everything. The rest of the day is your own."

A rare gift and Alex knew it. He had a long list of responsibilities, too, but Yassen suspected those would end up handled in the morning. He had expected it and did not mind. It would not be an easy assignment. Alex deserved the small chance to relax.

"Thank you."

No, Yassen decided, that was not the gratitude of someone grateful for a few undisturbed hours to handle their homework. He didn't bother to hide his amusement.

"Dismissed."

Alex was out the door before anything could threaten his small taste of freedom.

* * *

Tom Harris wasn't sure if he had made a mistake.

Some days he thought so. A new country, a new school, entirely on his own except for the _terrorist security detail,_ and with classes that looked like they were going to be a lot harder than Brookland's ever were.

Some days. Most days, he couldn't leave fast enough – away from his parents, away from MI6, away from surveillance, away from the memories – and if that meant working harder, well, he could live with that.

Saint Verena was slightly old-fashioned, meticulously maintained, and hideously expensive looking. Tom had his own room; small and his own responsibility but _his._ Laundry was handled as part of the tuition fees, pretty much every sport imaginable could be arranged for and, as Jean had pointed out in the most matter-of-fact way, Alex Rider had left clear instructions that what Tom wanted, Tom got.

Tom had seen the list of school tours and study trips; everything from a one-day tour to an entire week, and Jean, acting as Tom's guardian, had signed him up for every single one of them without blinking.

"That sounds like a security risk," Tom had said.

"We've handled worse," Jean had responded, and that was the end of that matter. Money wasn't spoken of.

It was a world away from Brookland.

And then there was the headmaster. Headmistress, Tom supposed. She was probably around fifty and wore professional clothes that looked like they cost more than any of the teachers at Brookland made in a month.

Tom was summoned to a meeting with her on his first day there and he didn't look forward to it. Headmistress, principal, whatever the term, he only had bad experiences and he didn't look forward to another one.

It did not go the way he had expected.

The office was that expensive mix of old and classy. The was a slight breezy from the open window, and the walls were decorated with photos of probably-important people and diplomas hung _just_ so.

Tom could almost smell the tuition money.

There was an open folder in front of her as Tom sat down. He recognised the Brookland emblem and knew it was his own.

"Your academic records …" She trailed off.

Tom knew his academic records. He had expected the comment. Something about the way she said it still stung. He didn't care, he didn't _want_ to care, but it still stung.

She put the papers down. Focused solely on Tom and in that instant, something in her expression softened slightly.

"Let me make one thing perfectly clear, Mr Harris. You are not your academic records. You have a bad home life, a history of bullying – long past, thankfully – and based on what I can see, little effort was made to help. You have not been tested for dyslexia, nor for ADHD. I suspect that you have never been given much of a chance at all. We pride ourselves on our elite athletic program. That is no excuse to neglect the academic side of education."

It took several seconds before Tom's train of thought managed to switch from the expected _you_ _need to focus more_ that he had heard so often and to – to that. The sting turned into a burn in his eyes and a lump in his throat; unfamiliar and utterly unexpected, and he found himself fighting back sudden tears.

He couldn't recall the last time someone hadn't blamed him. He couldn't remember the last time someone hadn't just repeated how bad his grades were but actually tried to explain it with something more than _immature_ and _impatient_ and _unfocused._

Tom took a shuddering breath.

"Okay," he said and managed to keep his voice steady.

"I won't make promises about your grades that we might not be able to keep," she continued, "but I will promise you that we will do everything within out ability to ensure that you have the best possible foundation when you leave our school."

"Okay," Tom repeated, because he couldn't think of anything else to say, and he didn't trust his voice not to break -

 _\- Need to get your act together, Tom, you'll never go anywhere with those grades -_

 _\- Why don't you just try? If you only put more effort into your homework -_

She smiled. It looked genuine. "It will take hard work, but we will do whatever we can to make it easier. You are not the first student with challenges in school, and you won't be the last. We know a number of excellent tutors and work with a private medical clinic for those of our students who need it. If you want to focus on sports and have the aptitude for it, we will support that fully, but it's our goal that everyone here should have an academic foundation to build upon and you will, too."

She packed the folder away. It vanished into a cabinet that didn't look like it got an awful amount of use.

"Welcome to Saint Verena, Mr Harris. Let's see if we can't do a better job of your schooling than your previous institution did."

* * *

Jack landed in the middle of paradise. Well, 'paradise' if paradise came with terrorists. And probably venomous animals. And plants that could kill you if you looked at them wrong. It looked like that sort of place. The sheer humidity felt like a hammer after months in the Middle East, and she could almost _see_ the vegetation's slow, relentless battle against the concrete under her feet.

Honestly, she halfway expected a velociraptor to appear from the trees beyond the helipad.

Jack was greeted by a man in his mid-thirties, dark-haired and deeply tanned and with an ambiguous enough appearance that she couldn't pinpoint where he was from. A bit of Mediterranean? Middle-Eastern? Native American? It could have been a mix of any of them, she really couldn't tell. Based on the disguise classes she had sat through, she wasn't sure she would ever trust _anyone's_ appearance again.

He did look surprisingly nice for a terrorist. Then again, several of the instructors at that _school_ had owned some sense of humour, too, even if it had been a bad one.

The man held out his hand. "Emmanuel Crowe."

Jack considered her options but accepted it after a moment. The name clicked a second later. "Jack Starbright. You're Dr Crowe. The one who made that tracker implant."

She still wasn't sure what to think about that. The original tracker had saved Alex's life and the current one he carried let SCORPIA find him if anything went wrong. On the other hand, it also allowed SCORPIA to find him anywhere, for any reason, and it was an uncomfortable reminder that kid or not, Alex Rider was SCORPIA's property. He hadn't had a say in that implant. The way he hadn't even argued told her beyond any doubt that he was used to that kind of treatment, too.

Something flickered through the man's eyes. "For Orion? I did. It's an incredibly versatile bit of technology but the price reflects that. Expensive insurance for a valuable operative."

" _Insurance."_ Jack's tone of voice left little doubt about her opinion on that.

"Insurance," Crowe repeated and there was a bit of a sigh in his voice. "Though for SCORPIA more than Orion to begin with. Your phone, Ms Starbright."

Jack wanted to argue but knew better and handed it over with just a little reluctance. Crowe slipped it into a pocket. Just like that, Jack was completely cut off from the outside world. From her parents. From Alex.

"I'll lock this away in my office," Crowe said, and something about his tone of voice – strangely pointed – made her pay attention. "As we're all honest people. I can't _imagine_ I'll see a reason to check if it's still there until you leave again."

To her credit, Jack got that immediately. Then again, Crowe had been about as unsubtle as he possibly could.

She had a location for her phone and carte blanche to try and get it back – assuming, of course, that she could. And had the time. And could find his office in the first place.

"That's very optimistic of you," Jack said, just a little suspicious, "since this is a SCORPIA research lab."

Maybe she was a little snarky about it, too. She blamed Alex's influence.

At least Crowe didn't seem to mind. Just shrugged slightly. "I like to believe people learn better through encouragement than fear."

And Jack had her encouragement right there. If that was Crowe's motivation, she didn't doubt he would put a number of _educational_ headaches in her way. She couldn't even claim he was wrong. That phone was her only connection to Alex, half a world away. If she had to figure out how to break into an office to get it back, well, so be it. Maybe she could even use some of the stuff she had picked up from her self-study courses or her lessons at that _school._

Jack didn't answer but glanced around again at the place that would be home for – god knew how long. She was slowly adjusting to the humidity but it was still miserable. Her clothes already stuck to her skin and she could feel the first droplet of sweat seep into her bra.

Beyond the island, the Pacific Ocean seemed to stretch forever. Up ahead, the world was a wall of green; trees and bushes and grass and moss and cloud-kissed mountains.

"… So where do you hide the dinosaurs?" she asked before she could stop herself.

"Isla Nublar." Crowe didn't miss a beat.

Jack paused. "Not the first to ask, huh?"

Crowe gave a wry, little smile. "Not the first to ask, no."

He gestured towards the path leading away from the helipad. Jack followed after a second. "The inspiration for the islands, Nublar and Sorna, is actually believed to be Cocos Island about twenty miles from here. That one is protected as a national park. This one is obviously a little more available to commercial interests."

Jack almost stopped when she realised something else. "Are you seriously giving me the tourist guide tour?"

Crowe shrugged. "We don't get that many visitors. Besides, the island has a genuinely interesting history. It's supposed to have multiple pirate treasures buried somewhere. They've never been found, of course, so no one can really disprove they aren't still around, just waiting for a lucky treasure hunter."

Pirates. Treasure. That sounded suspiciously like an easy way to distract any visitors from the true background of the place. _SCORPIA. Terrorists. Research._ Several months at that _school_ had taught Jack to question everything.

Still … _pirates._

"… All right," she relented. "You got my attention."

It was still hot. Still humid. Still miserable. But maybe, just maybe, it would be better than Malagosto.

* * *

A/N: Thank you to Zyzyax for suggesting Sekhmet's name.

About twenty miles from Cocos Island in Costa Rica is water. It sits all by its lonesome as the only part of the Cocos Plate that sticks above the Pacific. Like Santa Catarina, I needed an island, so Cocos Island got a neighbour. Isla Nublar and Isla Sorna are an obvious reference to _Jurassic Park_.

Next: The aftermath


	96. Scorpia Rising

Alex Rider returned to Abu Dhabi three days after the attack on Warren's home. Unlike on the way out, he travelled by business jet chartered with his own money. It hadn't been cheap but he had the money for it and he desperately wanted the small bit of peace and privacy before they returned to Malagosto and Dr Three.

He had Sagitta with him but no one else. Hyde and the other combat teams were still in Australia, getting things under control. Alex had left the moment it had become clear the operation had been a success. There were still a lot of things that could go wrong but it was in Hyde's hands now, Hyde and Ussuri's, and Alex needed to get away.

Without the pressure of getting it right, he had too much time to think.

 _It had been a test._

Alex had been forced to deal and get over it within a matter of hours; all the attention he could spare from the operation. He hadn't been able to afford the sort of distraction it would be if he actually sat down and thought about it.

 _It had been a test._

Now Warren was dead, Hyde had Australia, and a hurricane of suppressed emotions caught up with him; a month of fury and anger and disbelief and the sick sense of fear that he had ruthlessly ignored.

 _Dr Three had tried to have them assassinated as a **test.**_

The jet had been thoroughly checked for surveillance and the crew was just the sort Yassen would have approved of: quietly efficient and with the common sense to make themselves scarce otherwise.

It left Alex with the time and privacy to just – deal with everything. No outsiders around, no cover story to remember, nothing. He had forced himself to watch the news, a lesson Yassen had hammered relentlessly into him, and caught up on paperwork, and spent a long time just staring out the window without actually seeing anything of the world outside.

He had needed the time to think and Sagitta knew him well enough to leave him alone.

They had landed briefly in Singapore to refuel. Now they were on the last stretch to Abu Dhabi and the hours counted down relentlessly.

Dr Three would be there. So would Yassen, because Alex couldn't imagine the man would allow for anything else. Not after the assassination attempt. Not when this was Alex's second graduation assignment of sorts.

The sort of evaluation Alex could expect, however …

They had fulfilled the mission objectives. Take over, send a message. There had been a lot of unspoken objectives, though, things Alex knew Dr Three expected – or expected him to figure out – and those he had deliberately ignored. The doctor would know that. He didn't doubt Yassen was enough of a mind-reader to work it out, too.

Did Dr Three really expect him to have obeyed those unspoken orders? Alex wasn't sure. The doctor knew him. He had to know Alex would baulk at them, too. They wanted a successor, someone to take over SCORPIA, but not now, not for years, maybe not for a decade, and Yassen had pointed that out and -

\- And what?

He had followed orders but if they wanted mindless obedience, they had a long list of operatives for that. Alex would be Orion when he had to but he couldn't stay him, and that wasn't what Yassen wanted, either. Yassen or Dr Three.

Orion was a lethal, obedient weapon but that wasn't what they needed to run SCORPIA and Dr Three had told him that, too. He had been given the choice, the supposedly-easy route of Orion or the years of hard work as Alex Rider to maybe – _maybe_ – get good enough one day to take over, and he had chosen to be Alex.

It had been a lot easier to decide that Dr Three could shove his expectations somewhere unpleasant when he hadn't been about three hours from Abu Dhabi and the debriefing that awaited him there.

 _It had been a test._

How much of it had been a mind-game, too? If it had been just Yassen behind it, Alex was pretty sure the only goal had been to see how he would manage on his own and make sure he could run a successful operation alone. That maybe he didn't have the necessary training and experience to manage himself but he would be smart enough to surround himself with people who did. _Delegate,_ that was the very first lesson they had hammered into him.

Then again, if it had been just Yassen behind it, he would just have sent Alex off, not arranged for an attempted assassination as well.

Dr Three had been behind it, Yassen had just taken advantage of the opportunity. He probably hadn't been pleased but that wouldn't have stopped him. Alex doubted he'd had much of a choice about it, anyway, not when it seemed like the doctor was constantly three steps ahead of them.

Was that what it had taken to survive on the executive board? Alex couldn't imagine surviving for two decades like that, much less thrive in that sort of environment. No one to trust, any alliance liable to be abandoned at the first sign of a better opportunity, any sign of weakness pretty much a death sentence -

How much of Dr Three's time had been spent on politics? He had enjoyed it once, Alex didn't doubt it, but maybe it wasn't a surprise that the doctor had decided to go with their solution if he wanted more time to devote to his research and his eventual peaceful retirement.

It had been a lot of time spent on politics … and, Alex realised with a chill a moment later -

\- How much _more_ time did the doctor have now that he didn't have to survive in a sea of sharks?

Dr Three had managed a careful balance between SCORPIA operations, executive board politics, time at Malagosto, and his own research. How, Alex had no idea. Maybe, like Yassen, the man just _didn't sleep._

But now a solid chunk of that was gone. The executive board was all but gone and Dr Three's classes at Malagosto along with a lot of RTI training had been passed on to Crux. Under the doctor's close supervision, but still. Some of that copious amount of new spare time would probably be used on hobbies and research – which, with Dr Three, was really one and the same. Some would probably be used to put plans into motion for that retirement that hadn't actually been an option before. A place to live. Suitable security even without SCORPIA to back him. A lot of money put aside.

And some of that time, Alex realised with a sinking feeling, would be spent on him. Because if Dr Three's preferred retirement included the full backing of SCORPIA, he would take a strong interest in Alex's training. More than he already had.

Alex had passed his second graduation of sorts but he didn't know if he had passed it in the right way, and with Dr Three, that mattered.

His first graduation had been different. Nice had been simple – terrible, lonely, nauseating; but _simple._ Kill. Escape. Leave no evidence. Nothing else.

This was – layer and layers and layers, and half the time Alex didn't even understand what he was being judged on.

Alex had fulfilled his mission objectives and half a year ago that would have been enough, and now … there was no right or wrong answer any more, no solution he could just point to. He had to be able to argue for everything and maybe he was wrong and could argue well enough, and Dr Three would approve, anyway. Maybe he was right and it wouldn't matter if he couldn't make a convincing enough argument for it. If he couldn't prove it wasn't just dumb luck.

 _Delegate. Stand on your own. Hold your ground._ Those were the lessons Yassen and Dr Three had hammered into him, because if he couldn't even manage that, he would never be able to run something like SCORPIA. But that still wouldn't matter if he did it wrong. If he held his ground when he shouldn't have, or delegated to the wrong person, or -

A cup appeared in front of him and blocked his view of the window. Wiggled enticingly, or as enticingly as a fancy, white porcelain cup could. It was probably a designer one, too. It looked like that sort of thing.

Alex looked up and found Shale with an raised eyebrow as he waited for Alex to actually do something.

Alex took the cup. Spotted a matching one in Shale's other hand, then glanced down to see what looked like a mountain of whipped cream.

Was that -

"Hot chocolate," Shale confirmed and settled down in the seat across from Alex.

Alex blinked. It looked like the proper stuff, too. When was the last time he'd had real hot chocolate? It didn't suit the fancy dining that Malagosto's kitchen favoured as a way to complement the Countess' lessons, Alex's own guest quarters mostly had things that didn't have more complicated instructions than 'open can' or 'add water' and … he didn't get much chance or time for anything else.

Was that the sort of thing that came with the package when you chartered a business jet? Right there and then, that alone was almost worth the price.

"In the middle of summer?" he asked when he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Doctor's orders."

Alex stared at it. Took a cautious sniff, hands curled protectively around the cup. "Is it spiked?"

To be fair, he would probably at least give it a taste even if it was. Depending on what was in it, anyway. And not mention it to Jack.

Shale's lips twitched slightly. "Wrong doctor's orders. Milk, chocolate, whipped cream. Though depending on Mr Gregorovich's standards, maybe the chocolate counts."

… Come to think of it, it probably did. Unless it was the really dark, healthy stuff, and it didn't smell like it.

Alex took a careful sip, then another. Rich and creamy and almost too hot to drink. Almost. He let the flavour settle and felt the tension in his shoulders slowly ease. Somehow it tasted all the better for imaginary Yassen's disapproval.

Alex savoured another mouthful just to spite him, then did the responsible thing and focused on Shale.

"Trouble?" He didn't think so, not this soon after they left, but he couldn't rule it out.

Shale shook his head. "You looked like you could use a break."

While Alex would have happily spent time with any one of the team, he was that bit more attached to Shale after everything and Sagitta knew it. Another attachment that could become a problem one day if someone decided to target Shale for it – or could have become one already, if Sagitta had decided to take advantage of it – but that was one of those thoughts that Alex preferred to push aside for now.

Alex didn't argue, which was as good as an admission. "… Just thinking about the debriefing."

Shale made a small, non-committal sound and took a drink of his own hot chocolate. "You fulfilled every objective we were given."

"Yeah." Alex didn't expand on that. Shale didn't make him.

Alex glanced at the window again. The clouds beyond the glass seemed to go on forever. Somewhere beneath them was India, at least according to the flight information. It wasn't like he could see anything.

The cup was warm in his hands and for a while Alex just took in the scent of chocolate and the warmth against his skin. It reminded him of Jack. She had always used the ugliest mugs in the house and her version of hot chocolate had come in powdered form and usually had just enough milk that they couldn't use a fork to eat it, but – _Jack._

He wondered if she would be there. The deal had been that they would get to see each other regularly but 'regularly' was a pretty broad term and Yassen and Dr Three had obviously made a point to keep her away from him for the assignment. She had her own education to handle now. Her own responsibilities.

So did Alex. And he had to do them well enough that it would be worth it for SCORPIA to keep him happy. To keep Jack and Tom safe.

No way out. There hadn't been in a long time. Alex was too tangled up in things and had tangled too many other people up with him. The only way now was through, to whatever waited at the end of it all.

"… They'll know we did it," Alex finally said when he had finished a good part of the chocolate and the warmth between his hands had almost faded. Shale hadn't said a word. "Everyone. Yassen wants me to start to make a name for myself. They'll make sure everyone knows this was my operation."

Since Sagitta was known to be his combat team and security detail, they would be tangled up in that as well. Alex didn't point that out and didn't need to. Ammit had their own files with the various intelligence agencies and Kurst's security detail had been a terror in themselves. Sagitta was already known because of him. This would just increase that scrutiny,

It would mean more attention. It would make them a much bigger target than a normal combat team would have been. Less expendable to SCORPIA but a much bigger target.

Shale hummed. The sound almost vanished in the low rumble of the engines. "It's not that surprising. You're sixteen. If Mr Gregorovich wants a successor, this operation will be a good foundation to build on."

From SCORPIA's point of view, it definitely would be. Complete annihilation of the target. Just the sort of thing that looked good to clients.

Alex wondered what everyone else would think. Jack would know soon enough if she didn't already; she knew where he had been and she watched the news, too. An expensive vineyard gone up in an explosion like that in what was already theorised to be the first – _or last_ – shot fired in an underground war … it had been _everywhere._

Part of him desperately tried not to think about it. Part of him was too exhausted to care. There were too many other things to handle, too much to worry about, and Jack had understood before, and – was it too much to hope that she would understand again? Maybe he didn't deserve it but he hoped.

Byrne and Blunt and Jones, who probably already suspected SCORPIA and who would undoubtedly know all the sordid details the moment Yassen and Dr Three made it common knowledge. _This is what your blackmailed child soldier has become; this is what we created._ And, for the right payment and Yassen's approval, he might one day work for them again. That reminder was entirely unwanted and Alex pushed it aside before he could think too much about it. Maybe Yassen wouldn't like that sort of deal but he might still agree if the payment was worth it. If the boost to Alex's reputation was worth it. Dr Three certainly would, so long as he was sure it wasn't a trap.

Ben Daniels would probably find out and be all sanctimonious about it, because it wasn't like MI6 wouldn't have done the same thing in a heartbeat if it served their purpose, of _course_ not. Alex hoped he _choked_ on it.

… Smithers, who had been probably the only person in all of MI6 who had even tried to help, and the reminder was the muted sting of different times and could-have-beens.

Alex still missed the gadgets sometimes. They were a reminder of his missions for MI6 but they had also been amazing creations and proof that _someone_ had cared enough to try to protect him, even just one person. One person beyond Jack who looked at the fourteen-year-old he had been and gone _this isn't right._ Neither of them had been able to do much in the end but they had tried, at least, which was more than most people in Alex's life had.

Alex glanced down at his cup and didn't speak.

He was _tired._ Long weeks in charge finally caught up with him, the knowledge that this was just a short break before it all started up again the moment they landed and -

\- He wanted a vacation. A week. Two. Just – grab Jack and go on a road trip somewhere, or lounge on a beach and drink pink, fruity cocktails or something else well away from SCORPIA and Dr Three and everything.

Maybe bring Tom, now that he was busy daydreaming, anyway.

"Grab a nap," Shale said. "We're still a few hours out. By the time we land, you body will think it's midnight. You'll need the sleep if you want to be at least a little clear-headed."

Point. Alex sighed softly.

"Yeah."

He handed the cup back with a bit of cold chocolate still left at the bottom. Shale took it without a word, though he did offer Alex a faint smile as he got up and left again.

Alex kicked off his shoes, grabbed a blanket, reclined his seat as far as it would go, and closed his eyes.

He was asleep before he could even wonder if he should get a proper pillow.

* * *

They landed in Abu Dhabi in the late afternoon. Alex was not surprised to find two cars waiting for them, both white, massive Mercedes G-Class monstrosities that undoubtedly came with both armour and the engine to match it.

The drivers waited by the cars. Marcus caught Alex's attention. Nodded towards Ivey in a silent order. Alex didn't argue, just went along with it.

"Mr Rider?" The driver by the first car zeroed in on him fast enough that the question was obviously rhetorical.

Ivey answered before Alex could. "And his security. Keys, please."

The driver hesitated. Ivey snapped his fingers. " _Keys._ "

The driver looked to Alex, who had caught on by then and definitely wasn't going to argue. Between an unknown SCORPIA employee – possibly sent by Dr Three – and Ivey, who had been behind the wheel in Johannesburg … well.

The man must have seen the answer on Alex's face because he handed the keys to Ivey without an argument.

"Address and satnav?" Ivey continued.

This time the driver didn't even try Alex. "Yes, sir."

"Excellent. Orion, front seat."

In case of trouble, because it would be easier with security wherever they were going, or just because they knew it would make Alex feel better. He didn't know and didn't ask, just followed instructions and settled into the broad leather seats.

A glance behind them revealed that Mace had commandeered the other car. After Johannesburg and Dr Three, Sagitta was almost as paranoid as Alex.

The address was already plugged into the satnav. Alex didn't recognise the street name but he did recognise the building on the map.

Ivey waited for his verdict. Alex hesitated, then brought out his phone. They could wait a few more minutes. He wanted to be sure and he knew Sagitta would, too.

 _Did you have to pick Kurst's old office for the debriefing?_

Alex had a lot of experience with that place; all of it bad. His graduation assignment. The check of his tracker. The aftermath of Santa Catarina. He could have done just fine without another visit. It hadn't technically been Kurst's office, it had been used by all of the executive board as needed, but that was still what Alex associated it with.

The response arrived within the minute.

 _Would you prefer Malagosto?_

In any other case, Alex might have said yes. Now, after their assignment, with the knowledge that Dr Three ordered their assassination as a _test_ … on second thought, Alex was quite happy to handle that debriefing well away from the doctor's territory.

It also gave him the answer he needed.

"It's the right address."

"Good." Something in Ivey's voice promised absolutely nothing good for the driver if anything else had been the case. Alex was still rattled from Johannesburg but he had kind of assumed that Shale and Ivey were over it. That they were used to it in a way that Alex wasn't. Apparently he was wrong, and something about it made him feel a little better. He wasn't just overly emotional about the whole thing, then.

A brief exchange with Adams made sure the second car had the same, correct address. Only then did they leave.

It would have been a shorter drive from Dubai's airport but Alex hadn't known where the meeting would be and Abu Dhabi was the easier default since it was closer to Malagosto.

On the bright side, it gave Alex a little longer to prepare himself. He was tired. Exhausted. The nap had helped but his body still believed it was inching past midnight. He had too much to think about and very little idea of what he was about to walk into, and all he really wanted was to curl up somewhere and sleep for a day or two.

Alex trusted Ivey to have things under control and allowed the rumble of the engine and vibrations of the street beneath them to lull him to sleep.

He woke again to a light nudge of his arm. The view up ahead, the first glimpses of tall, white buildings, told him why Shale had woken him. Almost there.

A spike of adrenaline, the insidious curl of anxiety and that felt horribly familiar. Kurst was dead but that didn't erase the memories. He wondered how Marcus felt about it. Probably not much better.

The skyscraper was familiar, too, a glass giant that blotted out the sun and vanished from sight as they disappeared into the darkness of the underground car park.

A guard already waited for them. The whole thing felt like an echo of Santa Catarina, and Alex wondered if Dr Three had done that on purpose. Another way to unsettle him. Another little mind-game.

He forced the thought aside. Unlike that debriefing, he would have an ally in the room this time. Maybe Yassen wouldn't agree with everything he had done, but he would still protect Alex if it came to that. That made a world of difference.

"Mr Rider," the guard greeted. "They're expecting you."

 _Mr Rider._ Sagitta wasn't mentioned, and that told Alex plainly that Yassen and Dr Three wanted to see him alone.

Marcus frowned and looked like he was about to argue. Given what had happened the last time the man was in a similar sort of situation, the gesture made Alex feel surprisingly warm and fuzzy. He still shook his head, though.

"It's fine. Keep an eye on things?"

Marcus paused. Sent a sour look at the guard. Relented. "Right."

 _Right._

Alex stepped into the elevator. The guard stayed in the car park. The doors closed, the elevator began its ascent, and for that brief half a minute, Alex was entirely alone. Under surveillance, he was sure, but alone.

He focused on breathing, slow and steady. A bit of the anxious knot eased up but was replaced by restless nerves instead.

The elevator came to a soft stop. Two more guards waited outside and Alex followed them down a painfully familiar hallway.

One guard opened the door to the office. Let Alex in. Closed it again behind him and cut off the world outside.

The desk Kurst had used had been replaced, that was Alex's first, irrational thought. There was a table instead, big enough for several people, though for now there were only two occupied seats, both in a position to face the door.

"Alexander."

Dr Three. A slight gesture brought Alex closer and made him sit in the chair across from Yassen and the doctor.

Alex took the chance to watch Yassen. He looked … much the same as usual, to be honest. A little more tanned, maybe. Bogotá seemed to have agreed with him. Alex caught his eyes and saw a flicker of amusement. Clearly Yassen knew what he was doing and didn't actually mind.

Dr Three – the man looked as harmless as always. The patient teacher waiting for his student and not the cold-blooded psychopath that Alex knew him to be. The man who had ordered a hit on Alex and never even blinked and then proceeded to analyse his every reaction to it. Who had ordered Alex to torture a man under a thin guise of 'information retrieval' and 'punishment' and known the entire time just who had been behind the plan in the first place.

Mind-games and politics and experiments. Maybe when he looked at it like that, it wasn't a surprise that Dr Three was the only original member of the board still standing. Alex doubted there were a lot of people the man couldn't manipulate with enough time and incentive.

Still, something was off. Alex couldn't pinpoint it but he had learned to trust his instincts.

Was that a good sign? A bad one? He had no way to tell but with Dr Three, it was probably bad.

"… Sirs," Alex greeted when the silence stretched on just a little longer than politeness allowed.

He almost expected to see that kind smile, the sadist at play the moment before he struck, but there was nothing. Just a slight nod in acknowledgement.

The moment later it clicked, the _something_ that nagged at his senses. Dr Three usually made a good act of being capable of normal, human emotions. It was a good enough act to fool anyone who didn't know who he was, and to those who did, it was unnerving more than anything.

The doctor didn't bother now. The calm patience was there but the unnervingly sincere-looking kindness was gone. Like Kurst and Duval and Yu, there was not a drop of humanity in his eyes. A cursory effort and not much more. Alex almost missed that human act now.

"Your report on the assignment."

Alex had sent regular updates. Short, to-the-point, and painfully professional, but that wasn't what Dr Three wanted now, he knew that much. The report was just a convenient way to give him something to dig into and watch Alex react.

"Warren's network was taken over mostly intact. The most recent update from Australia was that things progressed acceptably. We lost some key elements of it because they were too loyal to be trusted, but most were sensible enough to go along with the change in management."

Well, most had been too loyal. A few had been killed on accident. Two from an attempted escape, another several from intimidation that had gone too far. Alex had seen the reports and had no intention of sharing that part with Yassen or Dr Three. He didn't like what had happened – _definitely_ _not safe around civilians_ – but mistakes happened. It was his responsibility in the end and he wasn't going to let his people pay for that sort of thing.

There had been a brief report from Hyde when they had landed in Singapore though it was limited how much had changed in that time. Mostly it was simple courtesy. There was still a lot of the network to go through, a lot of issues to handle, but the valuable parts of it were under SCORPIA's control. Contacts, key business associates, the right kind of corrupt people. The rest could be replaced. The harsh but practical approach. The sort that Hyde favoured.

"You consider the assignment a success, then?"

And there it was. The question sounded so harmless. Alex knew it was anything but. A glance at Yassen proved that he was utterly unreadable now as well. Alex would get no help from that corner.

Something in Alex snapped, weeks of stress, of second-guessing everything, of the doctor's endless mind-games, and he was _done._ He wasn't going to cater to Dr Three's hobbies, not any more. If they wanted Alex Rider as a successor to SCORPIA, then they would damn well get that.

"We fulfilled the mission objectives." Alex waited half a heartbeat before he continued, as close to insolent as he could get away with. "The target is dead, we sent a message that SCORPIA is still strong, and it looks like we'll be able to recover and rebuild Warren's network with minimal loss of time."

"Those weren't your only objectives, though," the doctor pointed out. He sounded so mild and reasonable, like failure wasn't punishable by death. Alex didn't think Dr Three would actually kill him, not with Yassen right there, but he was still painfully familiar with the usual SCORPIA punishment for big enough failures … and Yassen's presence didn't rule out other punishments, either.

Alex sat a little straighter. Raised his head and stared the doctor straight in the eye.

"Those were the ones I was given." A heartbeat. "Sir."

Capture Warren, send him to Dr Three for interrogation, do the same with the loyal, high-ranking parts of his network, use Graff's drug if necessary – Alex knew perfectly well what sort of expectations the doctor hadn't spelled out for him but if he had really wanted that, he could have flat-out told Alex that and not played his usual games. Alex probably still wouldn't have done it, but he would have been blatantly, wilfully disobedient, then, and not just skirting the edge of it something fierce.

… Actually, never mind Dr Three. Yassen was going to _kill_ him for arguing with the doctor again, but Alex really couldn't bring himself to care. He also didn't glance at him but kept his full attention on the doctor. He was sure Yassen was Displeased, capital D, and he didn't need to check to make sure.

Dr Three made a small, thoughtful sound. "Robert Warren would have been a significant source of intelligence. Less so in the case of his most trusted subordinates, perhaps, but he was an intelligent man with a sound understanding of the underworld he ruled."

"We managed to take over enough of the network that we can replace the missing parts without too much trouble. You gave Hyde a year before you expect results. You'll have them."

"It was still a significant source of information lost."

"It was impossible to capture him alive. His security was too good." Shale had made the call. Alex trusted that verdict.

Another thoughtful hum. "And his home? His office had little in the way of useful intel. That was likely kept in his home."

"His first line of defence was land mines, and the rest of his security was likely to be even worse _._ The risk to my people was unacceptable."

Alex refused to give an inch. His assignment, his decisions, his responsibility.

"SCORPIA's people," Dr Three corrected, "and ultimately expendable. The operation comes before all else. Perhaps they have become too much of a liability."

The threat was not subtle in the slightest, the lazy games of a feline with a wounded bird, and in any other case Alex might have stopped to think about it.

As it was, tired and angry and _done -_

"Touch them," he hissed, "and I will _kill you._ "

In that second he meant it, too, with every bit of the cold, lethal ruthlessness that was Orion, every bit of Alex Rider that had survived the training and would take on even Dr Three if that was what it took to keep one of his last, few human connections alive.

Dr Three was deadly, he had contingency plans, he had killed people for much less, and Alex didn't care one bit. If he so much as _looked_ at Sagitta the wrong way -

" _Alex._ "

The first time Yassen had spoken since Alex arrived, the sharp blade of a reprimand, and Alex forced himself to stop. Take a slow breath. Consider the situation. He knew that tone of voice. It was a reminder that Alex was about to reach the end of Yassen's indulgence but it wasn't the unyielding tone from last time Yassen took him to task for talking back to the doctor.

Alex looked at Yassen and if there was an edge of defiance in his stance, that couldn't possibly surprise the man.

Yassen looked calm. Coolly observant. Not what Alex had expected based on their last in-person argument about the doctor, either.

A glance back at Dr Three revealed nothing but that uncomfortably familiar look of a scientist with a particularly interesting lab specimen.

"A sentimental assassin," the doctor remarked. "How quaint. His mother's blood, I suppose. Hunter was a delightfully pragmatic man and Ian Rider hardly showed much in the sense of care for the well-being of even his own nephew."

Alex forced himself not to react to the obvious bait though he desperately wanted to. He was in a ton of trouble, anyway. He might as well make it worth it.

Was that a flicker of approval in Yassen's expression? Alex couldn't tell.

"I expect the temper was from her," Yassen agreed.

Dr Three was silent for long seconds as he just watched Alex. "He is sixteen. I suppose it was too much to hope he would not have some measure of teenage rebellion in him."

"If you wish for mindless obedience instead, it would be simple to recall Nile from Manila," Yassen said and echoed Alex's own thoughts on the matter.

Alex himself seemed forgotten for now, though he knew that was definitely not the case. Yassen and Dr Three seemed focused on their own discussion, though, and Alex wasn't about to interrupt. He did have some tiny bit of self-preservation still left.

Dr Three didn't respond. Instead his attention returned to Alex.

"You don't always be able to avoid risks to your security detail. They have their job, as you have yours."

"That doesn't mean I have to throw them away on some stupid, risky attack that probably wouldn't even have worked. Warren was paranoid. He's the type who would have the place rigged to blow if someone tried to attack."

"Indeed." Was that agreement? Disagreement? The man's voice gave nothing away. "Tell me, Alexander. How many have you killed?"

 _I – what?_

For a moment the question didn't really register, Alex's mind too startled to make sense of it. Then the words clicked and he opened his mouth -

\- And closed it again the second later, an awful, sinking feeling in his stomach as he realised he _didn't know._

Somewhere along the lines, Alex had lost count.

He had promised himself to remember, not to lose track, not to lose count the way Yassen had and somewhere along the line, Alex had failed.

The surge of nausea was immediate and almost expected and Alex took a sharp breath. Fought against his roiling stomach until he could focus on the world around him again without throwing up, and -

\- Somewhere, he had lost count.

He wasn't even sure when. Maybe the Congo. Maybe after Kurst. He knew he would be able to remember if he thought about it but that wasn't the point. The point was that he would need to think about it at all. He should have known without a moment of hesitation.

"Equally important," Dr Three continued, patient and merciless, "is the question of how you would define such an answer. Those lives ended at your own hand? Those ended at the hands of those you command? Those killed as merely collateral damage?"

Alex didn't know the answer. He didn't want to think about it, either. Miami hadn't been his operation, but he had let Daniels go on Santa Catarina, he had been with Sagitta every step of the way in the Congo, and Australia …

… Australia.

"What's your point?" he demanded instead, respect and politeness ignored.

The doctor merely looked mildly amused. "Perhaps I don't have one."

Except to point out Alex's hypocrisy. An assassin protecting cold-blooded killers. He was sixteen years old and he had already lost count, and what difference did it even make if he had pulled the trigger himself or told someone else to do it for him? That didn't make the targets any less dead.

 _Targets._ Not victims. _Targets._ Most of them hadn't been good people but that didn't change the fact that they had still been human beings. Yassen and Malagosto had done a great job.

Long seconds ticked by. Then Dr Three focused on Yassen.

"He is stubborn. Impatient and insolent as well, though hardly a surprise given his age."

Something about his voice sent every instinct in Alex's mind on high alert; a fight or flight response that had nowhere to go. Alex remembered that tone of voice. He had heard it in Paris as well when the old board had approved his promotion.

Yassen nodded, conceding the point. "He is loyal. Intelligent and adaptive. Perhaps he did not complete the assignment to your satisfaction, but I see no reason to fault him for that. If you wished for someone to play petty games with, perhaps I should have left Yu alive for you."

"Winston was a delight to work with and had exquisite taste in revenge, but he allowed power to overrule sensible caution." Dr Three glanced at Alex, a calculating sharpness in his eyes that Alex had rarely seen and never wanted to see aimed at himself. "He will need an understanding of politics to survive. Perhaps you use the word as an insult but even then you have a sensible grasp of it. The intelligence world thrives on it. SCORPIA will not survive through brute force and stubbornness alone."

"He is sixteen." Dr Three had pointed that out as well but it sounded different in Yassen's voice. Less like a flaw to correct. "He was trained as an adult from fourteen. I made no allowances for his age. He has been exposed to MI6 and the CIA's idea of politics already, and his history with our esteemed former colleagues is well-established. Politics can be taught. That training has already started through experience alone."

"Perhaps." Dr Three's attention lingered on Alex, that sharp, calculating expression again. Alex didn't look away but forced himself to stay still and meet the doctor's gaze without flinching.

He counted the seconds as the room stayed deathly silent. He had reached twenty-three by the time the doctor looked back to Yassen.

"I have been pleasantly surprised by the success of his de-conditioning," the doctor allowed. "His stubbornness is useful in the right circumstances."

Alex continued to count the seconds. He wondered what went on in the doctor's head. Decided just as fast that he didn't want to know.

 _Forty._

 _Fifty._

 _Six-_

"He will do."

Dr Three delivered the verdict with the same callousness the old board had shown. There were no compliments, no praise or approving comments. Just three words and the heavy knowledge that coming from Dr Three, that was about the highest level of approval Alex was likely to hear for a long, long time. He was good enough to invest the time and effort in to train, good enough to gamble on as a legitimate option for a successor, but that was it.

Alex wasn't just an unusually skilled operative any more, the trained pet to be praised when he managed a particularly clever trick. He was potentially SCORPIA's future chief executive, Yassen and Dr Three's apprentice on the board, and based on those standards, he was barely acceptable.

He had a long way to go and something about the doctor's verdict hammered that home with bleak finality.

"We will discuss the operation in detail later," the doctor continued and made it sound rather ominous. "Dismissed."

Alex nodded and got up. "Sir."

He saw Yassen close the folder in front of him as he left. Probably about to leave, too. Alex made an impulsive decision and decided to wait outside. The guards said nothing, just politely left him alone, and he found that the small gamble paid off when Yassen appeared a few minutes later.

"Alex." Yassen didn't sound surprised to see him. "With me."

At least that made Alex's wait sound a little more legitimate and like Yassen had planned it like that. "Sir."

They walked down the hallway in silence. The guards nodded respectfully but otherwise ignored them. Only when the doors closed and they were alone in the elevator did Alex speak again.

"I want the tracker out. I don't care what you or the doctor think, I want it out."

He was done with that thing. He never wanted to see another one of them. He would almost forget about it and then remember, and he was sick and tired of it. Of the reminder, of the feeling that he was just a particularly valuable piece of property, of the thought that Dr Three could watch his every move and he had no way to tell.

He expected Yassen to argue. He at least expected him to get mildly annoyed in that Yassen sort of way.

He got neither.

"It should be somewhat safer now with the good doctor's approval of your position," Yassen agreed.

Would he have said anything if Alex hadn't complained? Probably not. The petulant teenage part of him reared its head, encouraged by that small victory.

"I want a vacation."

"Your contract allows for downtime."

"I want Jack with me."

The elevator stopped. The doors slid open soundlessly. Up ahead, by the two cars – three now, he realised – he caught a glimpse of familiar, red hair and felt his breath hitch.

"That," Yassen murmured, "can be arranged."

Jack hadn't spotted him yet. Alex wanted to run to her, to hug her and never let go, but he forced himself to pause. "You knew."

Yassen didn't even deign to respond to that one, just continued like Alex hadn't spoken. "You have two weeks. Your next assignment will be ready by then."

 _Next assignment._ Of course it would be. Anxiety and dread and resignation and – that was his life now. That was what he had agreed to.

His feelings on that matter had to be obvious because Yassen glanced at him.

"You will, perhaps, find this one to be less of a trial. You are SCORPIA's only assassin of such a young age. There are others who make far more use of children for such roles, though. One of our smaller competitors is known to kidnap young children, brainwash them, train them, and use them as assassins. Perfectly loyal, perfectly obedient, perfectly conditioned. There are those who take offense to traditional intelligence services' lack of action against such practices. The organisation calls itself Nightshade and the client wants them annihilated. Negotiations are still underway but I believe it to be a suitable operation for you."

 _Children._

Kidnapped, conditioned. Assassins. Alex, at least, had been given a choice, even if it had been a bad one.

He took a slow breath and got his anger back under control.

"Right."

There was a flicker of approval in Yassen's eyes. "Go. Enjoy your downtime. Then ensure no one else will be tempted to employ those methods again."

Alex hesitated but didn't argue. He needed the break and with negotiations still underway, he couldn't do anything, anyway.

Yassen gave him a slight nod, then left. Off to one side, with plenty of room around to manoeuvre, a large, dark BMW came to life as he approached. Alex caught a glimpse of one of the members of Danube behind the wheel. Then he turned his attention back to Jack and Sagitta.

He still had a lot of things to consider. Dr Three was already a threat, there were huge chunks of SCORPIA's business that left a bad taste in his mouth, and Graff's drug was a constant danger in the back of his mind.

 _Politics._

Was this Dr Three's way to teach him how to navigate the sort of minefield that was the intelligence world? Alex wouldn't even be surprised. Give him the incentive to learn, and learn fast, because none of those problems would be solved by stubbornness and brute force alone.

Up ahead, Jack spotted his arrival. She turned away from Ivey in a whirl of red hair and lit up in a smile.

Alex smiled back, tired but genuine.

 _Later._ He could deal with politics later. For now, he had Jack, and Sagitta, and two weeks away from it all.

The future could wait.

* * *

A/N: And a small nod to _Never Say Die_ and _Nightshade,_ the only two of the series I haven't been able to work into the fic _._ It's been long enough since _Never Say Die_ that I don't consider that small part a spoiler any more. I know _Nightshade_ isn't out yet but the end of _Never Say Die_ gave a delightful kind of preview, so that's what I went with.

That's pretty much it. There's an epilogue to go, and I plan to post an additional info-chapter on AO3 (under the same username) with things like a timeline and all, but … yeah. A bit of an open ending, but it was Alex's second graduation of sorts, the moment Dr Three decided that yes, he could work with this, and it seemed like a good place to stop after some half a million plus words, since I don't particularly fancy writing another half a million on top. If there is anything in specific someone wants cleared up for this 'verse, let me know and I'll add it to the extra AO3 chapter (since they allow things that aren't quite pure fanfic in their stories, too).

Next: The epilogue


	97. Epilogue: Bucephalus

John Crawley slipped into Tulip's office without a sound and settled in the chair on the other side of her desk with the ease of familiarity.

Tulip didn't look up but finished the sentence she was working on, part of a briefing that would find itself on Alan Blunt's desk that afternoon.

 _\- no direct evidence at this time, but circumstantial evidence (appendix 1.A-F) strongly implies local involvement. Based on the current situation, the recommendation is that the operation proceeds._

Tulip stopped typing. Looked up at Crawley. The man slid a thin folder across the desk.

"SCORPIA has been confirmed to be behind the attack on Robert Warren," he said. "We didn't have to look hard for it. They all but put out a press release. Here's the most current intel we have."

Tulip opened the folder. It was only about a page written in Crawley's brief, factual manner and it didn't take her long to read. She almost wished she hadn't.

"Alex Rider," she said softly.

SCORPIA's little Australian strike had been more massacre than operation; the complete annihilation of the target – presumably to prove to everyone watching that the organisation was in no way weakened by the eradication of most of its executive board – and now Tulip had proof of what she had strongly suspected but not wanted to see confirmed.

Alex Rider had been the target of that assassination attempt in Johannesburg. Tulip knew SCORPIA's approach to things well enough that she would have been very surprised if Alex hadn't been the one sent to handle retaliation, too.

How many had killed? Crawley's short briefing only had an estimate. Tulip doubted they would ever know for sure. Not with that sort of … thoroughness.

"Yes, ma'am. They've made no secret of the fact that they're moving him into position as Gregorovich's successor." Even Crawley's voice sounded a little more subdued than usual, tired in a way it normally wasn't.

Tulip didn't blame him. Alex Rider was sixteen years old and already had more blood on his hands than some of MI6's veteran agents. Had Alex even known what that missile would do? She hoped he hadn't but knew just as well that it was a fool's delusion. Gregorovich would have given Alex a thorough education. Maybe the people around him had pushed for that solution, maybe Alex hadn't had a say at all, but SCORPIA obviously wanted to make it clear to everyone that the operation had been Alex Rider's.

She looked back at the single sheet of paper but didn't see the words, lost in thought instead.

Ben Daniels was the only one of their people who had interacted with Alex since he had left with Gregorovich. Daniels had described someone angry and bitter but brutally competent. Tulip supposed they deserved that. Alex Rider had not been treated kindly by MI6. It had been terribly easy to look the other way, to excuse it with _necessity_ and _no choice,_ and now they had to deal with the consequences.

Did Alan regret it? Tulip doubted it. Maybe he regretted the loss of the malleable, convenient weapon Alex had been but even that didn't matter. SCORPIA was still a business above all else. If MI6 ever needed Alex again, it was only a matter of money. Enough money to make Gregorovich relent, enough money to make up for the risk it would be to allow Alex Rider within reach of MI6 again, but that was all. Alex himself would have no more say in it than MI6 had offered him at fourteen.

Tulip didn't doubt Alan was well aware of that possibility. She wanted to tell herself that she would never go along with it, that John's child had suffered enough by their hand, but she couldn't even do that.

In some circumstances even SCORPIA could be the lesser evil.

Tulip looked back up briefly. "Thank you."

Crawley nodded. Left the room as soundlessly as he had arrived.

Tulip Jones stayed where she was for a long time, caught up in the memories of a tired, resigned fourteen-year-old as her eyes rested on the short report.

 _Alex Rider._ It all came back to that. SCORPIA, Gregorovich, a long list of brutal, bloody operations. _Alex Rider._

 _I'm sorry, John._

* * *

Something about Smithers' workshop was oddly soothing. Ben liked it. It was messy and chaotic, and god help you if you touched the wrong thing on accident, but he liked it. It was the exact opposite of Blunt and Jones. Bright and colourful against grey and more grey.

Ben liked to show up a bit early before a new mission. For a chance to talk, to pick up on any gossip, and just to look around a little. Satisfy his curiosity.

Anything could be hiding something, that was the fun of it. The guessing game. Was the pencil just a pencil? Was the coffee mug? The phone had to be some sort of highly-sophisticated gadget, and there was really no other reason why Smithers would keep an overflowing make-up purse around, either. Well, Ben didn't think so, anyway.

Or jewellery, for that matter.

Ben paused and looked again. That was definitely a necklace under one of Smithers' work lights, and it looked expensive, too. Silver, black stones of some sort, and lots of thin, delicate strands. What Ben knew about jewellery wasn't exactly impressive.

Smithers himself appeared from one of the storage rooms with the standard set of phone, pen, and watch and paused as he noticed where Ben's attention had drifted. Then he smiled, a little fond and wistful.

"Lovely thing, isn't it?" he asked and continued without waiting for an answer. "A gift, you know. Not a gadget but quite the lovely bit of work. You would be hard pressed to hide something within it but with some fine work and ingenuity – why, I managed to fit a gadget into an ear stud! I think, with a little creativity, this should make quite the challenging personal project."

Ben took his word for it. He couldn't even begin to imagine where the man would fit any sort of electronics into that thing, much less how to do it and not leave any sign of it.

"From a friend or something?" he asked instead, honestly curious. Was there an entire little closed community of gadgeteers and inventors out there, hidden from outsiders? He had never considered it but he kind of hoped so, now that he'd had the thought. Smithers' workshop was a nice place but it seemed like a lonely job with long hours. The sort where you never really left work behind.

Then again, he supposed the same could be said of an MI6 field agent.

There was something in Smithers' expression that made Ben pay attention. A little fond and a little amused, like a private little joke shared with no one else. Maybe there actually was a gadgeteer community that met up sometimes and blew things up together. The same sort of relentless curiosity that had seen him recruited by MI6 in the first place made him want to ask. Experience made him hold his tongue. The entire agency was a maze of secrets, few of them good. This was the innocent sort of thing, the harmless, geeky kind of secret that Ben kind of wished he saw a little more of. Not state secrets or terrorist plots or criminals that could get away with almost anything if they happened to be rich and well-connected enough.

"An unorthodox one of the kind," Smithers agreed. "A most unorthodox one of the kind."

He handed over the standard set of equipment. Ben accepted the items and looked them over. Different brands and different look than last time, but his cover would be very different, too.

"They have the usual features, of course," Smithers said. "Do come back in a couple of days, and I'll see if we can't whip up a few more surprises for you."

 _Surprises._ Ben smiled. Surprises from Smithers' workshop were the best kind, so long as you weren't the target of them. "Thanks."

His attention drifted back to the necklace. "So what are you going to do with it afterwards?"

If it had been a gift, he couldn't imagine the man would send it out into the field with someone where it would probably be ruined. As it turned out, he was right.

Smithers smiled. There was an impish glint in his eyes that Ben hadn't seen before, the delight of playing a joke on someone, and Ben wasn't even sure he was the target.

"Why, my lad, I do believe I'll send it back."

* * *

Tom Harris had never given much thought to graduation. Brookland had seemed like an endless thing; one day after the other of lessons and hobbies and homework until they blurred together into one homogeneous blob.

 _Homogeneous._ He blamed that word on Saint Verena. He'd definitely never used that one in Brookland.

He'd never paid much attention to graduation, mostly because he had no idea of what to do afterwards. Follow in Jerry's footsteps? Learn a trade? Try for some sort of semi-professional football career? It wasn't like his academic records offered great options for a future career and he knew it.

Tom didn't want to go to university, he knew that much. Saint Verena had pulled his grades from barely-passable to decent but that had been hard work and he was sick of school already. Up ahead graduation loomed as a hazy, ominous cloud of uncertainty and he had no idea of what to do about it.

He wanted … he wasn't sure what he wanted, and the cup of coffee in his hands offered no answer.

"Maybe I should join the army," he told it. The coffee stayed as it was, pitch-black and rapidly cooling. Tom wondered if that counted as agreement.

"Only if you have developed a sudden fondness of pointless orders and superiors screaming at you," Jean said.

Tom had wanted the Sunday off to go do – something. Angst about the future, maybe. Drink deep, dark, meaningful coffee and lament the dark depths of his despair. Jean was his company for the day, probably because he was entirely immune to Tom's teenage fits.

Tom stared at the cup again. "… Yeah."

The seconds ticked on. The coffee cup stayed the way it was: mostly full and rapidly approaching tepid. Deep, dark, meaningful coffee, black like the depths of his dark despair, Tom had found, tasted like crap.

"There are alternatives," Jean eventually said. _He'd_ drunk his coffee, Tom noted. Probably a lack of taste buds.

Something about the way he said that, entirely too casual, made Tom pause. "Yeah?" he asked, just as casual.

"Most of SCORPIA's private contractors come from military backgrounds but not all. We do train a number of our people ourselves."

Tom paused. "What, terrorist school like Alex?"

He wasn't sure what he felt about that. Well, that was a lie. He knew it was a terrible idea, he just wasn't sure if it was the 'killing people for money' or 'terrorist' thing he objected more to.

"I like to think you're smarter than that."

Tom was almost sure Jean looked amused for a second. Almost. He ignored the coffee to focus on Jean instead.

"Yeah?"

"SCORPIA doesn't just train assassins or mercenaries," Jean pointed out. "You've been under SCORPIA security for the past two years."

… _Huh._

Good point. He must've looked interested because Jean continued.

"Orion's current primary security is a combat team he has worked with since one of his first assignments for SCORPIA. His primary bodyguard is thirty. Sooner or later, he will need to replace that security."

"What, you want me as a bodyguard?"

"I want you to consider it."

Tom paused. "For Mr Trouble Magnet himself?"

"Well," Jean pointed out, quite reasonable, "you wouldn't be bored."

Tom supposed he had a point. Him and Alex against the world. Almost like the old days. Like Brookland. And maybe he would be working for a terrorist organisation but no one asked him to kill people, and -

 _Consider it._

\- It wasn't like it was a stranger idea than running off to teach English in Italy and do extreme sports on the weekends, was it? For Tom and Jerry Harris, that sort of career would be practically mundane.

* * *

Joe Byrne got a card for his retirement party. To be fair, he got a lot of them – he was a social man and skilled networker in a position of power – but only one of them had a blue, glittery, cartoon scorpion on it.

The text on the inside was a cheerful, printed _Happy Birthday, Scorpio Boy!_ that had been scratched out in favour of a scrawled _Happy retirement!_

There were two coupons for canned prunes taped to the other side of the card – still valid, Joe noted with some amusement – and no signature. Not that he needed one. There weren't all that many people who would sent him something like that.

There was, in fact, pretty much just one.

Alex Rider was still a source of nagging guilt in Joe's mind sometimes; the thought of what could have been if someone had looked beyond the usefulness of a fourteen-year-old spy and actually done something to help him. They had met occasionally over the years since, usually on business, and Joe had watched the kid grow from blackmailed fourteen-year-old spy to nineteen-year-old heir to SCORPIA.

"Boss?" Martino had drifted over, probably caught by the thoughtful look on Joe's face.

"Well, not as of two hours ago," Joe said. It felt – weird. Not having to get up in the morning any more. He had a vacation planned with his wife; a three month round the world cruise to make absolutely sure no one would call him back to work in a moment of helplessness. He hoped that would help him get used to normal life again, too.

Martino shrugged. _Old habits,_ he didn't say. Joe had spent six years shaping the man into a suitable successor. It would probably take a while to completely lose the 'boss' that his closest people had normally used.

"Anything interesting?" Martino asked instead.

Joe smiled. In any other case, he might have been worried about a card from SCORPIA. As it was, everything had been checked out by security already and he knew the kid. If SCORPIA really wanted him dead, there were plenty of other ways to target him.

"Just someone with a sense of humour." On a whim Joe peeled the coupons from the card and slipped them into Martino's suit pocket, then patted it. "There. You might need that next time you have to deal with some constipated old windbag of a politician that doesn't take 'it's impossible' for an answer."

Forty years in intelligence service meant that Joe had somehow managed to make himself scarce in the brief time it took Martino to get the coupons out to identify them.

Youth and skill really was no match for old age and treachery. Maybe he'd send Rider something back. The kid would turn twenty soon. Perfect chance for a little payback and encourage him to keep that sense of humour.

Joe whistled to himself. Then he went in search of the bacon-wrapped little cocktail weenies from cholesterol hell before his wife could stop him.

* * *

Alex Rider was used to paperwork. Like any large business, SCORPIA ran on paperwork. Like the sensibly paranoid bastards they were, the most important of said paperwork was kept on actual paper until it could be transferred to a properly secured served somewhere.

As a result, Alex was not surprised when Yassen placed another slim stack of paper in front of him that morning. He already had a towering pile in his inbox from their most recent operation. What did a few more pages matter? It wasn't like he had planned to sleep that night, anyway.

Yassen didn't go away. Alex sighed and picked it up without looking at it, his attention on Yassen instead.

"Rush order?"

Yassen looked faintly amused. "Hardly."

Something about that made Alex look down and actually pay attention to the papers. He recognised the layout immediately; the standard Malagosto contract that he had seen plenty of over the years. It took a second longer to spot the source of Yassen's amusement.

 _\- SCORPIA ('the employer') and Alexander John Rider ('the operative') -_

Alex glanced at his calender. He knew the date but it wasn't until then it really registered.

 _March 3rd._

"Five years ago," Yassen said, "you signed the standard contract of any Malagosto graduate. Congratulations, Alex. Your life is your own."

Alex hadn't thought about that contract in – in a long time. It had been a constant awareness those first many months, but after Yassen took over, after Alex started his training as his successor on the board, the idea of it had become … distant. Unimportant. It wasn't like it mattered any more, not the way it did with a normal operative.

It didn't matter. It _shouldn't_ matter. Alex was in this for good, and the contact hadn't had anything to say about that for a long, long time.

As Alex felt more than heard Yassen leave again, as he kept his eyes on the contract, as he felt something in his chest, slight but ever-present _finally_ ease …

 _Your life is your own._

… He supposed it had mattered after all.

* * *

Jack Starbright didn't want to visit Russia. It was bitterly cold, there was snow everywhere, the drive to the base would take forever, and she didn't understand the language.

Of course, the fact that the one and only time she had been to Russia before had been six years prior didn't help. Kurst and her kidnapping and -

\- Alex.

She still had those nightmares sometimes. Based on Alex's reaction to her trip, she suspected he did, too. He was halfway across the world but that hadn't stopped him. Jack had known she would travel with security. She always did these days. She hadn't expected just how far Alex would take it.

"You know I don't actually need this much security."

"The boss disagrees," Adams said and sounded unnaturally cheerful for someone heading to Vladivostok in January, "and the boss pays our salary. And our bonuses."

Jack supposed the best thing she could say was that at least Alex had kept Tom with him along with his secondary security team. At least he had _someone_ there she trusted to keep him out of trouble.

She was also familiar enough with SCORPIA politics to spot the magic word in Adams' reply.

"… Bonuses," Jack repeated dryly. "Just how much are we talking about here?"

"Triple hazard pay if we get you back home with nothing worse than a hangnail. A small hangnail. Tiny."

Which, Jack suspected, meant she would be lucky if someone didn't put a wig on and follow her into the ladies' room as well, just to make absolutely sure no rogue toilet brush tried to attack her.

" _Seriously?_ " And she knew the answer to that already, she really did, but _seriously?_

"Seriously. Hazard pay is great," Adams said sagely, "but triple hazard pay is better. And you're a lot easier to keep out of trouble than the boss is."

Which didn't really say much, because _Alex Rider._ Jack sighed but didn't comment. And while she would never say it, and she definitely preferred to keep Sagitta with Alex so he was a little less likely to end up in trouble, something in her also felt much better for their company.

"Just wait," Jack said. "I've seen the weather forecast. I'll get a cold. Or pneumonia. Or slip and break my leg."

"Don't worry, we got you one of those toddler snowsuits for adults. The big, warm, cushy ones."

"With the flap for easy diaper change?"

"Less risk you'll slip and fall in the bathroom," Adams agreed. "Coffee? We've got some nice, tepid stuff ready, no risk of burns or anything. We can whip up some great lukewarm tea, too."

Jack sighed. "I hate you. You know that, right?"

"Triple hazard pay," Adams repeated. "The best words in the English language."

It was Russia in winter, it was cold and dark and miserable and brought back memories she had done her best to never, ever think about again, but she wasn't alone and that would make a world of difference.

And if Alex took the chance to do something stupid while Sagitta was in Russia, well, Jack would make sure to return the favour. With interest. That was the least she could do.

* * *

It was a disappointing postmortem. A disappointing postmortem to match a disappointing clinical trial. Three had expected it. That did not make the result any more welcome to see.

The drug had done exactly what it had been supposed to and turned the test subject into an obedient puppet, it had gained Three some measure of intel to make up for the time and effort … and then the subject had died. Like every other test subject had done, one after the other over the course of months and years.

Dwale didn't interrupt Three's thoughts but quietly cleaned the table and tools with the efficiency born from years of practice. Scans, photos, notes, everything done to Three's exact specifications. Old age, Three had found, could make his hobby unfortunately difficult to practice but a well-trained assistant made up for that.

This was the one puzzle he still struggled with, the one challenge that stubbornly kept eluding his grasp, and Three wasn't entirely sure if he was pleased with this or annoyed enough to do something permanent about it.

He remembered every single person who had somehow outwitted him during his time on SCORPIA's board. It was a short list. Being tricked by someone's machinations had potentially lethal consequences and he had not survived through luck alone.

Still, Three had the unpleasant suspicion he would have to add another name to that list. The only consolation was that the man was long since dead.

Iohannes Graff had very carefully never promised anything he would not be able to deliver. In retrospect, SCORPIA's belief that the drug could be improved had been arrogance, nothing more. The same belief that a number of other clients had likely shared.

Graff had promised a drug that would subvert wills, turn subjects into mindless puppets, and kill them from exposure.

That was what SCORPIA had reclaimed from the ashes of the operation and that was what Three still had. The time before the lethal stage had been extended somewhat, but the subjects ended up no less dead. No less useless in the end.

Always the same symptoms. Always the same outcome. Always the same, slight signs in the postmortem.

Samantha Graff had known, Three had no doubts about that. She had distanced herself, made contingency plans, and when her husband's plans fell apart, she had erased any evidence of her own involvement. Had she planned to do the same even if those plans had not encountered difficulties? Three suspected as much. Let her husband run his bidding war and sell his creation, wait a suitable amount of time – half a year, perhaps – and dispose of him in an unfortunate accident. By the time any client might have become disgruntled that the drug proved impossible to adapt further, he would be long dead and his widow and children vanished.

There was the fleeting thought of hunting her down, the annoyance of being outwitted by mere children in the game, but it was a brief one. SCORPIA would acquiesce but Three supposed there was little point in wasting such resources for his own wounded pride.

And … perhaps something decent might still come of it. Three had still managed to improve the drug somewhat and he had all of SCORPIA's vast resources to help improve it further.

Perhaps a puzzle like that was just the thing to keep his mind sharp.

* * *

The _Fer de Lance_ drifted lazily well off of the coast of Odessa. She was not alone. Drifting a little more cautiously and at a respectful distance, the _Bucephalus_ kept pace with her like a wary suitor.

Even from the deck of the _Fer de Lance_ , the yacht was huge. Far larger and more powerful than her temporary companion, the _Bucephalus_ could serve as a floating command centre for SCORPIA. She was an eye-wateringly expensive piece of technology commissioned by Yassen Gregorovich, paid for by SCORPIA, and given to SCORPIA's youngest ever chief executive on his twenty-fifth birthday.

Half a year later, Alex still wasn't used to the fact that she was his. He still wasn't used to a lot of things. He'd had a lot of responsibility since Dr Three's retirement, and even more of it the last year before Yassen stepped down, but this was still – different.

There was no one else, that was probably the biggest change. Sure, he had lots of people around him he could ask for advice and help but Yassen had always been there above everything else. Someone he could go to if absolutely nothing else worked.

Now there wasn't. SCORPIA had a new chief executive, his name was Alex Rider, but some days Alex still expected Yassen to drop some mission file or another on his desk with the implied order to handle it. Still expected Yassen to be just an email away. And he still was but – not like that. SCORPIA was Alex's now, and Yassen …

Alex looked over at the man in question, leaning against the rail with a drink in his hand and looking like he had somehow managed to grow five years younger since Alex had last seen him …

… Retirement agreed with Yassen.

"You think too loudly."

"Some of us have to work for a living," Alex snarked back. "How was bingo night?"

There was a slight twitch of Yassen's lips, the ghost of humour Alex hadn't seen too often in the past few years, but he didn't comment. Wait, did that mean Yassen _actually_ went to bingo nights? Alex doubted it but he wasn't going to ask. He wasn't quite that suicidal.

Yassen had ruled SCORPIA with an iron first since Dr Three's retirement and he had handed a sharp, efficient operation over to Alex, but he hadn't enjoyed it. It had been work, nothing more and nothing less, an unfortunate necessity to ensure a safe, comfortable retirement, and that was it. Dr Three had enjoyed the politics and the easy, convenient chance to practice his hobbies, and Alex never forgot that he would be able to make an actual difference in the world with the full resources of SCORPIA behind him, but Yassen had wanted neither of that.

He had just … done his job, just like he had since SCORPIA first took an interest in him.

Twenty-five years in SCORPIA's service, first as an assassin, then as a board member. Alex couldn't even imagine it. The ten years of his own felt endless, and he was painfully aware that in another five years, he would have spent more than half his life with SCORPIA.

Just like Yassen had, Alex was reminded as well, with that same, sharp sting. Yassen had been … nineteen? Twenty? Not that much older than Alex had. He had spent his entire adult life with a terrorist organisation as well and unlike Alex, he hadn't had a protector on the executive board to watch out for him for most of that time.

If Yassen wanted to spend the next twenty-five years just drifting with the wind and waves on the _Fer de Lance,_ Alex would arrange for whatever it would take to make that happen. Beyond just the security detail and the promise of hellfire if anyone got any stupid ideas.

Alex's eyes drifted back to the massive yacht. He still wasn't used to the fact that she was his but he got a little closer every day. She didn't feel like home yet, not the way the _Fer de Lance_ still did, but every day he spent aboard made her a little more familiar. A little more like his.

Alex felt Yassen's gaze on him before it flickered to the yacht as well.

"She will serve you well," he murmured.

"She's incredible." Alex's response was honest and with a bit of the awe that something that large and expensive was his now. Jack had a cabin there for whenever she came to visit. Tom had claimed the one next to Alex's – for security reasons, of course, that had nothing to do with the fact that it was almost as big as Alex's own cabin.

She had the best defence capabilities available, enough weapons stocked away to handle anything up to an all-out military assault and her crew were all SCORPIA's own people, several of them trained, experienced operatives who had wanted to retire from field work but not from SCORPIA – and not one of them came from Malagosto. She was a target, sure, but anywhere Alex settled would be a target, but she was also freedom and adventure and -

\- She was his.

 _She was his._

It hadn't actually sunk in until now, standing on the deck of the _Fer de Lance_ and watching her gleam in the sunlight.

She was his.

Was this what Yassen had felt like the first time he had set foot on the _Fer de Lance?_ That sudden sense of hope, of _freedom_ , of an escape from that claustrophobic feeling that had been the politics of old SCORPIA?

Alex hoped so. He suspected he was right, too. Yassen enjoyed flying and expected Alex would, too, so he had paid for Alex's training. The _Fer de Lance_ was probably the closest thing to a home Yassen had had since he was a teenager, and Alex had enjoyed the time he had spent there, too … so Yassen had commissioned the _Bucephalus_ to give Alex at least one place where he could breathe and be just Alex. Somewhere to call home.

"… She's perfect," he said quietly. "Thank you."

Yassen didn't answer and didn't need to.

Silence settled. Sunlight caught the waves and danced along the water. The breeze was pleasantly cool against the summer heat. To one side, Odessa was a hazy mirage. To the other, the Black Sea seemed to go on forever until it became one with the horizon.

Tomorrow, Alex would deal with operations and clients and subordinates and politics and plans. Tomorrow.

For now, Alex had the _Fer de Lance_ and the _Bucephalus_ and the endless sea around them, and that was good enough for him.

* * *

And that's it. There's an additional chapter posted on AO3 under the same username with the timeline and a few, short bits of Yassen POV that didn't manage to fit into an interlude, but that's it. I've got no plans for any sequel or one-shots and at well past half a million words, I don't really feel like it, either.

Thank you for sticking with this beast of a story and thank you so much to everyone who reviewed – I suspect the fic would have been much shorter without you.

And if you've got a minute or two to spare, please leave a review and let me know what you think. Thank you! :)

* * *

Guest: ASIS has more or less claimed anything that even looks like SCORPIA as their jurisdiction and it has _absolutely nothing_ to do with their Uluru-sized grudge against Brendan Chase. Jokes aside, SCORPIA at the beginning was more of a mildly worrying rogue intelligence agency than the terrorist mega-corporation it later became. ASIS claimed jurisdiction since they had the experience and skills within that kind of area and they never let go again, even when SCORPIA plainly started to fall within other agencies instead.


End file.
